FATHERLAND
by G.E Waldo
Summary: Time-line: Post final season. Alternate Universe/Future events Summary: "Suffer the children to come unto me. . .for such is the kingdom of heaven." Pairing: House/Wilson/Foreman/Chase/Others Rating: NC-17 SLASH ADULT. M-PREG! Angst.
1. Chapter 1

FATHERLAND

(Sequel to Remember Zion)

By GeeLady

Time-line: Post final season. **Alternate Universe**/Future events

Summary: _"Suffer the children to come unto me. . .for such is the kingdom of heaven."_

Pairing: House/Wilson/Foreman/Chase/Others

Rating: NC-17 **SLASH** ADULT. **M-PREG!!** Angst. (You have been warned).

Disclaimer: The blue-eyed babe with the cane - _**sigh!**_ - is not mine.

_I know I said this would be a month down the road, but what-the-hey! (It came to me and here it is)._

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_**"When an opponent declares, "I will not come over to your side," I calmly say, "Your child belongs to us already... What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community."**_

Adolf Hitler.

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"They're getting so big now."

Their eleven babies, all between six months and two and one half years old, were still relatively small. But having been born after only three weeks inside their gestating father, it was no surprise that most of the growing was still to come. The oldest two, though - Reid and Gordon - House's sons by Foreman, were finally toddling around, hanging on to the couch and the walls of their ever shrinking home. It was just the beginning of the getting-into-trouble years.

Foreman watched his babies fondly. Reid had no difficulty with putting one foot in front of the other, while Gordon, a little shorter in the leg (surprising considering the height of both their sire and birth dads - neither short men), was less sure on his feet, teetering every-so-often to the left or the right. Foreman resisted the urge to constantly run over to steady him when-ever he looked like he was about to tip over. It wasn't a world where anyone, beyond those who loved you most, would lend a hand. From now on and for a long future while, you stood pretty well on your own or you simply didn't stand. It was a lesson they would all have to learn while they grew.

_May as well start 'em young. _ Foreman watched the boys and pondered Wilson's words. Yes, "Big", he had said, though not so big as numerous. The sturdy brick house had exactly two top story bedrooms. Large, as bedrooms went, but only two. The kitchen, the living-room, the back porch where birth-dad Gregory House had his lab and did his doctoring, a dirt cellar turned into preserves and food storage, and a small front railing-less veranda made up the rest of the dwelling. In square feet, it was roomy. But in practicality lay its short-fall. And House was pregnant again. How do you house twelve children comfortably once they grew beyond a crib? Already Reid's feet were touching the ends of his.

"We need a bigger house." Foreman said.

Wilson dragged his attention away from their delightful offspring, and to the words of his mate of seven years. Yes. Baby number twelve on the way. Their house was shrinking in virtually; a thing he had not considered until that moment.

"Yeah." Wilson looked back at Reid who had happened upon a toy block carved from wood, and was turning it in his clumsy child fingers, each side of the block painted with a different word - all of House's choosing: _COLON, KIDNEY, SPLEEN_, _DOCTOR, DADDY,_ and _GENIUS_.

Chase had stepped in and prevented _all_ of the toy blocks from befalling similar fates. "They're my kids, too, and _my_ kids are going to be taught normal things."

House had made some remark about "boring dad" and his bush kangaroo, but left him in peace.

Wilson's mind returned to the room and the problem now confronting them. Damn Foreman and his stiffly practical thinking. For months they had all more-or-less been buzzing with contentment. They had a warm home, a safe environment, beautiful children and a BM breeder they all loved to one depth or another (for Wilson, it ran to his blood and marrow).

Now all of that was about to change again. It was a depressing thought. "Should we build another?" Wilson asked, hoping it was the best solution to Foreman's ears. Another move. Seventeen people?? Even if twelve of them were under two and half feet in height - it was still a tall order. How in the hell could they manage it?

Foreman shook his head. "I can bang together an animal shed, Chase can carve a pretty mean play-pen, but build a house? One large enough for twelve growing boys? We're talking four bedrooms - minimum. And six double beds. Add to that more furniture, clothes. I don't know how to frame a house, or what we would use for insulation. Straw? Moss and mud? Most of the tree's around here are willow." Which meant thin trunks. Not construction material. "We own one old, rusting saw." Foreman shook his head. As far as he could see, the obstacles were un-breachable. "It could take ten years, and that's only if we do it right - and we probably wouldn't. Somehow, I don't know how, but we have to move."

Wilson turned his eyes back to Reid and Gordon, both now sitting on the floor, tossing blocks and laughing as they hit the floor with a clatter. "If _that's_ impossible, then how do we move eleven - soon to be _twelve _- children and five adult men with one car and twenty-nine gallons of gas?"

Foreman understood that of course. "I don't know, but we'd better think of a way." An idea popped into his head. Eli had come from a farm two days drive away. Two days drive on a motorcycle. Five hundred miles, Eli had said. That's how far away his and the late, murdering Josh's former home was. With twenty miles a gallon as an average mileage for a mid-nineties car like the one they had, they could do it with two men and be left four gallons to spare. But was there more gasoline buried on that farm? How many other motorbikes were still...Foreman had a new and better thought. A question, but very possibly also a better thought, depending on the answer.

"That high school we went to? Did you notice if there was a school bus anywhere close by?"

Wilson nodded. "Yeah." A tall, long orange bus. "It looked in pretty good shape, too."

Foreman pursed his lips. "Hmm. Do you know how to drive a forty foot bus?"

The idea was sound, and the town not that far. He'd forgotten all about the school bus_es_ - he remembered two. "I drove a Volvo."

Eli and Chase were consulted.

"A move?" Eli was not happy about the idea. He loved their life as it was, where it was. "But everything's going so good for us here."

"Here is going to be too small very soon." Foreman reminded him, then looked around at his mates. "Unless one of you learns how to construct a decent house and, say, finishing it sometime in the next five years."

Eli tried again. "Isn't this jumping the gun a little? None of our boys are going to need new beds yet. Like you said, not for years. Can't we-?"

Wilson hated the idea of moving, too. But Foreman was right. Why can't things just stay the same for a while? "How much harder will it be when the babies are seven or eight?" He sighed. Practicality by necessity lurked around every corner in a world where nothing was secure for long.

Chase took the floor. "Wilson and Foreman are right. What if the car breaks down sometime between now and five years from now? Engine parts wear out, brakes seize, electrical wires fray."

Eli couldn't think of a new argument for staying. Privately, he knew they were right. There were safe on the farm - for _now. _But they were also isolated, and far from help. Not that their past "help" had been particularly beneficial. "How do we do it?"

Chase leaned forward on the straight backed wood chair. The kitchen seemed to be their unspoken but agreed upon family meeting place. They could all huddle together around the table and hash out problems until one or more of them came up with a solution that all could live with. "Wilson and Foreman should take the car, and one of the rifles Josh left behind when he very nicely died out there on our lawn." Chase glanced at Eli, remembering with gratitude that the giant of a man had been there to finish off the man who had kidnapped House, tearing all of their lives up.

"Eli and I will stay here to care for the animals and to help House with the children." Chase looked around. House had not joined them in the kitchen. "Is House sleeping?" At Wilson's nod, he continued. "There's bound to be some gas left in the school buses." Chase gave Foreman a tiny nod.

Foreman took up the monologue. "They looked like they haven't been touched. They looked brand new." The hoods were still down, the interior, the quick look inside he had taken, hadn't been torn up for material. Stood to reason the gas hadn't been siphoned off either. In fact, he was counting on it. "Plenty of room for seventeen people, and lots to spare for supplies. We can strap things to the roof. Take everything we need. We'll siphon the extra gas from the second bus and take that too. We ought to have enough for a trip of a thousand miles if needed."

Wilson felt even more depressed. "A thousand miles to where?" He asked.

Foreman shrugged. "For now, let's get the bus here. It's only a four hour drive one way. We'll be gone less than a day this time." Their last trip to Small Town America had taken two days, but then they had stayed long enough to dismantle the high school chemistry lab, bringing it back with them. A gift for a depressed House. House hadn't spent much time in it yet, being too nauseous - "too pregnant" as he had put it - to do much of anything except complain.

Wilson battled his inner demons about the pending move. That trip had been not even been a month ago, but it seemed like a past life. The past weeks since then had felt like heaven. House was carrying his fourth child, and he eagerly awaited the birth.

A move far away from everything they had established and made their own felt like another purgatory; like the first days after Outbreak, when he and Foreman had stumbled upon one another on Long Island. Once the virus had played itself out and all the women were gone, and almost all of the blue-eyed men (save for those naturally immune like House), he and Foreman had moved away from the carefully controlled military-style life under government hands, and located a place to settle in New Jersey. It was more dangerous, more wild and a harder way to live, but it had also been freedom. A chance to start over.

The rest is history. None of it had been trouble-free. But House and the few others like him who had survived, had made hope come alive. Suddenly a future and family seemed possible again, all because nature had chosen the immune "mutant" Blue's (or BM's) to bear the new generations - literally.

They had built freedom once again here, right where they were. Wilson did not speculate about his other sire-mates feelings on it but, for him, House was the whole reason he wanted to stay alive. House and the wonderful children he had gone through so much to bear and give to them.

But Foreman talked, and Chase backed him up, and Eli, as usual, defered to his physician mates as though doctors had all the answers to everything. "I don't want to move." Wilson blurted.

Foreman said. "I know. But we don't have much choice." He paused. "Unless you have a better idea?"

Wilson didn't. He shook his head, and rose from the table. He knew the others didn't have to ask where he was going as he climbed the stairs. He was checking on House. He checked on him a dozen times a day, sometimes until House threw him out of the bedroom, or out of the kitchen, or out of the _house_, just to get a little peace.

This time, House didn't say a word as Wilson softly opened the door. It still squeaked the whole way. Gotta oil the hinges. But then, what was the point? They were abandoning the hinges along with everything else. Let them sing for now if they wanted to, they would soon enough be silent for good.

"Hey." Wilson lay down behind his lover, wrapping his arms around him. House didn't protest. In fact, he scooched over to give Wilson more room.

Wilson, as he almost always did, rested his right palm on House's swollen lower abdomen. Wilson was delighted to find the jeans unbuttoned and the zipper open all the way. At this stage of his pregnancy, that was the only way House could wear them, his belly now too fat to let him zip them closed. The tender bulge was hot with life and flushed with pink "baby-sign" - Chase's newest phrase for a knocked-up House.

"Hey." House answered back.

Wilson began gently rubbing the baby spot in slow, luxurious circles. Sometimes it eased House's nausea. And it fed Wilson's mind with images of House giving birth. The touch of flesh on flesh also fired Wilson's cock. But with this pregnancy, House's nausea had arrived the first week and refused to budge. All manner of ginger drink and plain, mushed up food had done nothing to shift it. "Still feeling sick?"

House nodded, and even that movement set up an extra wave of "pukey"- House's word, added to his list of pregnancy symptoms he had, after fourteen pregnancies, come to loathe.

But sleep usually did the trick. House would sleep through the night, save for rushed trips to the bathroom bucket to pee whenever the baby kicked, then get up in the morning and enjoy an hour or so of feeling normal before the nausea would settle in again. Then back to bed. Sleep, move around, get pukey, back to bed. A pattern he had been repeating since his second day of being "with-Jewish-baba". Wilson didn't mind the political incorrectness of his mate. As long as he was fat with baby, as far as Wilson was concerned, House couldn't do a single thing wrong that wasn't forgivable.

Wilson sighed and House must have heard something in it, because he suddenly asked "What?"

Wilson hugged him tighter. "We have to move."

House turned his head slightly. "What the hell for?"

Foreman was right. Even this, the largest of the two bedrooms, was looking small with twelve cribs pushed up against three of the four walls, one still awaiting its un-born occupant. "We're soon to have dozen kids. This house can't hold that many people, not when they start to really grow up."

House craned his neck to look around the room. He supposed Wilson was right. "How are the kids?" House had left their care largely up to Wilson and Eli while he was lying down. If he stood too long with his stomach raging the way it was, he usually ended up throwing up what-ever he had managed to keep down. This was his first pregnancy where he had lost weight instead of gained (the first pregnancy of this kind, that is, where the child was expected to survive) With his un-named miscarried son, he had lost over twenty pounds, only half of that from the miscarriage itself.

Wilson ran his fingers along House's right side. "I could play _Skinna-marink-a-dink-a-dink_ on your rib-cage."

"Not with your toneless lack of talent."

Wilson ignored the insult, and began to rub his palm higher on House's belly, then lower, then lower still, until his little finger was just touching, teasing, the base of House's flaccid penis.

House at first ignored the seductive caresses, then turned so he was facing Wilson and let him kiss him. Wilson kept the kiss long on his breath, then let his hands find the buttons on House's shirt, unfastening and pushing it away, until he had all of his lover's clothes off. He asked "How nauseous are you? Is it really bad?"

House worked to remove Wilson's shirt as well. "Not _that_ bad."

After only moments, Wilson was inside his mate, making long, slow, deep passages within, his cock thick and aching with the intense pleasure of it. Oscillations in between hard thrusts, savoring the unbelievable headiness of fucking his sweetly pregnant House. If there was high higher than the highest, this beat even that. The hot tightness, the feel of being swallowed by his lover, the image of his lover already pregnant - and maybe, within a momentary sexual fantasy, another planted today. Right now.

Being careful not to put any weight on House's tender under-belly, Wilson sped up and up until he was pumping madly, until House moaned his approval with each thrust. That made the room exploded around him in searing heat and flashes of brain storm - a show of fire and light.

Wilson pumped until every drop was spent from his body and they both collapsed, Wilson being careful to roll off House before flopping bonelessly on the mattress.

Once he had caught his breath "We really have to move?' House asked.

"I think so." Wilson looked over at House. His face had a sheen of sweat though his eyes no longer seemed occupied by the discomfort of his digestive track. "Feeling better?"

House nodded. "Screwing cures nausea. Who knew?"

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The diesel-fired engine rumbled down the lane, carrying a three thousand pound, forty-foot orange beast on its back.

Eli watched its arrival with really were going. Chase could sense the sadness in the big guy, and patted his shoulder. "We'll be all right, you know. We're four pretty intelligent men. Thanks to your former roomie we have rifles and three boxes of ammunition, and enough gas to get us almost anywhere we want to go." Chase looked up at Eli. He had to crane his neck a little to do it, Eli's six-foot-four-inch a full six inches taller than himself. "Are you positive there's more gas buried at your old place?"

Eli nodded. He wasn't exactly sure where it all was buried, but it was there. It was just a matter of figuring out where Josh would have most likely buried it, then digging it up. "Fifty gallons more of gas for the car. Another hundred of diesel." For the bus that would be their second escape vehicle. Two of them would drive the car in convoy until it ran out of gas, then they would abandon it.

Josh's place had been a proper, working ranch once. The original farmer had his own diesel tank full of the purple liquid gold to run all his farm equipment. The huge metal constructs had since rusted useless. Eli recalled the back field being littered with the red, rusting hulks of dead machines, still in the air like reconstructed dinosaur bones; extinct beasts fit only for a curious eye, should one happen to wander by.

Prior to Josh's home-steading of the place, wandering scavenger humans (who barely passed anymore as a member of the species), had ignored the diesel tank because most scavengers didn't drive diesel engine cars. And most scavengers, or for that matter - anyone, didn't have vehicles. Scavengers were practical in the way of survival. Practical, efficient and deadly. They had honed man-hunting and theft to a fine, if grotesque, art. Do accomplish their "craft", they used horses. Horses were quick, ate wild hay that grew at the side of almost every road in Montana and, in a pinch, made damn good eating. Besides, grass was free and there wasn't much chance of the world running out of that any time soon.

Eli much preferred the idea of the big, heavy bus that could bust through the legs of any scavenger's mount, and the scavengers as well, in minutes leaving them far behind on the road to suffer and die any way suited to them. The bus was a good thing, the only good thing, about this move. "I guess we're really going."

Chase walked over to the bus that Foreman had taught himself to drive on the way home, and peeked inside. It was clean and looked water-tight. The tires had good tread, too. If they encountered snow on an elevated highway, they'd be fine. Chase looked up at Foreman, who sat proudly in the driver's seat. Seems he enjoyed his little power-trip. "Hello bus driver-man." Chase greeted with a false, squeaky soprano. "When do we leave for camp?"

Foreman unbuckled the seat-belt and climbed down. He stretched. "As soon as we pack. Make lists of everything you think we'll need. Everyone should do the same. That way if one of us forgets something important, maybe someone else will remember."

Chase nodded. It was wise counsel. He spread the word.

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With a heavy heart, Wilson folded baby and adult clothes into two boxes for himself, House and the boys. The boys clothes were by far the more numerous garments, House and most of the men had been drastically reduced as to fashion through years of wear and tear. Some clothes, sewn and repaired so many times, had lived well past their time of death and, beyond saving, had been demoted from clothing to rags, or sewn together for the making of some very colorful but odd looking sheets for the children's cribs.

House watched him, nauseous once again but trying to stay awake to be, if not any real help, then emotional support for his oldest friend and lover. They'd be all right. they had Foreman. They had a big-ass metal and iron bus. They had guns and plenty of pairs of balls to shoot first and ask questions later. not usually one to nurture hope, house said to Wilson, as he folded one diaper after another "This'll be a cake-walk."

Wilson smiled to himself. An ironic, humorless grin. "Doesn't sound like you, House."

"When I'm being blunt and bleak, you scold me to soften up, and then when I soften up, you gripe. You're hard to please."

Wilson felt a surge of affection, and leaned over to kiss his mate on the lips. "I'll eventually get used to the idea of leaving here."

House raised one eyebrow. "Eventually meaning tomorrow? 'Cause that's when it happening."

"Sure." Wilson dropped the last home-sewn diaper in the box, closed the lid carelessly and plopped down on the bed beside House, stretching out. If he just turned his head to the left, he could see the gentle swell of House's lower belly, inside which lay his un-born son. He had the urge to kiss and lick it, but instead settled for "How close do you think you are?"

With automatic reflex, House touched his belly with two fingers. "Two days maybe. Not much more."

"I don't like the idea of you having that baby while we're on the road."

"It won't be the first time."

"It shouldn't have to be at all." Wilson had a bad feeling about this move. To him, it felt as though an invisible demon was changing the pieces on the board of their existence, and disaster was just a roll of the dice away. "This feels like a gamble."

House shrugged. "Staying _here_ would be a gamble."

Maybe. That didn't pacify the nameless fear, shirking around the peripheral of his mind, poking at him with its ugly claw. "Foreman better be right about this. We get far enough away and find nothing, we won't have the fuel to get back."

House nodded. He hoped Foreman was right, too. The life of his unborn son was riding on it. But then, from his first breath, his life would be a gamble. One could always hope, though House had never indulged in it. Hope was an empty emotion. One way or another, his children would have to come learn first-hand about both.

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The next morning, Chase and Foreman, after working all night with Eli to get everything ready, were re-checking the boxes and bags of things they were taking with them. Every ounce of preserved food and beef jerky Wilson had prepared over the last few months was carefully stored near the back of the bus, the farthest spot from the heat of the engine, where the opened windows would be left to flow cool air over them, to help keep the food cool. Every item of clothing and every scrap of cloth, blankets and linen was brought on board. Every utensil and tool, no matter how small, was removed from the house and tucked in the narrow storage compartment beneath the bus. All of the kids toys, except for the play-pens, were wedged in between or underneath the back four seats.

Nine of their eleven children were strapped into the bus seats, either in their tiny, home-made cribs or on thick quilts, with more quilts over them, then strapped carefully but firmly in place in case the road should get rough.

Wilson and House would ride in the car behind the bus, Wilson driving, and House with his youngest twin babies between them.

Each vehicle would carry a rifle and a box of bullets. Foreman had spent time showing House how to load and shoot. Even after practice, his aim remained terrible, but at least the weapon _looked_ lethal.

Lastly, Chase had opened the gates of the animals pens, so the goats and cows could wander freely and find whatever life in the wild was left to them. But since the children would still need milk and eggs, not all of the animals were being left behind. The six youngest, healthiest chickens, and one Billy and one Nanny goat were carried onto the bus, along with a bale of wild hay and a sack of Chase's carefully mixed wild seeds and wheat for chicken feed. Every bottle they could scavenge from the house and sheds were filled with boiled water and placed on board.

All the extra gas and diesel was placed in the trunk of the car, away from babies sensitive lungs.

Eli had also packed up a mix of dried vegetable seeds for a garden crop sometime down the road, if they should ever happen upon a farm even half as good as the one they were leaving. Eli was unhappy about the move, but his adored mate House was going with the other fellows, and his children were going, because with the group was a stronger, safer place than alone. And so he was going. His new worry lines, too.

They were ready. Foreman, the designated driver of the bus, took a short walk around the yard. This was the home they had built, and the life they had made. A good life it had been. Some awful times, too, but when they were all together, mostly a good life.

He sighed and turned away from the roof he had repaired, the fences he and Chase had expanded and fixed; the home they had fashioned from their own hands and the children they had coaxed from the belly of their beloved breeder.

Foreman climbed in the driver's seat and turned the key. The engine rumbled to life.

Time to go.

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Part II asap


	2. Chapter 2

FATHERLAND

Part II

**(Sequel to Remember Zion)**

By GeeLadyf

Time-line: Post final season. **Alternate Universe**/Future events

Summary: _"Suffer the children to come unto me. . .for such is the kingdom of heaven."_

Pairing: House/Wilson/Foreman/Chase/Others

Rating: NC-17 **SLASH** ADULT. **M-PREG!!** Angst. (You have been warned).

Disclaimer: The blue-eyed babe with the cane - _**sigh!**_ - is not mine.

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The roar of the highway on the second day was dulled by the cool air, the windows closed against it to keep out the chill of a mid fall morning. Fog had risen from the road, high enough to leave a wide corridor, but just thick enough to obscure anything beyond fifty meters.

Foreman eased back on the throttle. "We don't want to hit any deer."

Chase sat two seats from the front, holding baby Greg in his arms, and chatting back and forth to help Foreman stay alert. "Or another car."

"What's the likely-hood?" Foreman asked rhetorically. "Remember when we tried to find House. Six days on the road and we didn't see another soul, never mind a car."

Chase remembered. It had been a hellish week. As hard as it had been to turn back home, he was so thankful to walk up the lane of their little farm, he nearly cried. Wilson had wept, but not about any dirt road, but because House had not returned with them. They were all together now, and nothing was going to change that ever again.

"Hey." Foreman said sharply. "I don't see the car behind us anymore."

Chase quickly turned in his seat. No, the car wasn't there. "Go back."

Foreman didn't need to be told. He slowed and cranked the wheel, maneuvering the cumbersome vehicle around in a wide U-turn. In moments, they came upon the car sitting on the, to their perspective, left side of the highway. Wilson had his head and upper body thrust into the back-seat. Eli, his face sweating, was watching whatever was going on inside through the opposite window.

House was very clearly the one lying down.

Foreman could guess the reason. He pulled the bus over to the right, parked and switched off the ignition to conserve fuel. "For a change, House is right on time." He remarked and leaped form the vehicle, sprinting across the road.

Chase stayed where he was. Eleven toddlers and babies could not be left alone for even a minute. He opened the latch on one dusty side window, and lowered the pane to watch the goings-on. House was obviously in labor. Foreman had been in a such a hurry to get going on his move thing. "We should have waited." Chase mumbled to himself. "Another day or two wouldn't have mattered."

He could see Foreman and Wilson talking as Wilson leaned over House uselessly, having nothing to offer in the way of pain relief or a more comfortable pallet. The new baby was not yet ready to depart its soft, warm home and House thrashed with ever increasing spasms. Those spasms would speed up, slow down, and then break for the home-run. Even so, they could all be stuck here for hours. Male child-birth wasn't any faster or easier than female had been. Mother Nature was having a good laugh on them.

Foreman sprinted back to the bus. "We're driving ahead to see if we can find a little house or old motel to spend the night. That way, House can have the baby in a little more comfort. There's probably hundreds of abandoned farms off the highways."

"We shouldn't go far." Chase didn't like the idea of their two-vehicle convoy splitting up. Two was marginally more safe than one.

"We won't. Twenty miles - tops."

Foreman looked more confident than he sounded, but Chase couldn't see his face from where he was sitting. He turned his attention back to baby Greg, who was no end a fussy child. He didn't cry much but never stayed still. Chase wondered if House had been like that as a baby. Or how active a man had he been before his leg was maimed. Going by baby Greg and what he personally knew about House, the man had to have been a hell-raiser.

An half hour up the road "Hey." Foreman said again.

This was a different _hey_. The other _hey_ had betray a hint of worry. This _hey_ carried a note of warning.

Chase looked up as Foreman brought the bus to another stop. Ahead, perhaps two or three miles up the hilly, curving highway, was a collection of black vehicles placed across the road to create a barrier. Tiny black dots moved back and forth before the vehicles. Specks of people. "A road block."

The only reason they had not been spotted, Chase thought, was because the bus had come to the crest of a short hill with some scattered saplings obscuring their bus, but allowing enough space between the branches to see a long way down the road. The mobile fortress of cars and people had been fairly easy to spot. "What do you think they're doing?"

Foreman leaned on the steering wheel. "I don't know." But the scene left him very uneasy. "This is the only highway west in this area. We could go back to the last junction and take the south road. It's a more secluded way - longer." More gas and diesel eaten up in other words.

Chase understood. "I think it's worth a few gallons to back-track if it keeps us anonymous. None of our run-in's with people have been a dinner party."

Foreman nodded. "Yeah. " He turned the wheel to crank the bus around once more. "Ditto." So far they had not been spotted.

-

-

Foreman knew they were only about a mile from the car.

By the time he pulled the bus to a brake-squealing halt, Wilson was sitting up in the back seat, holding a tiny, tiny bundle. Foreman looked at his watch. Three hours. House's quickest labor ever.

Before Foreman could even switch off the bus, Chase was speaking urgently in his ear. "I think I spotted a vehicle behind us. Over the crest of the last hill. Maybe four miles back."

Foreman felt his heart rate increase. Nothing was ever simple. "Shit. I guess they spotted us after all."

"Or it's some sort of routine patrol."

"What patrol would that be?"

"I don't know, the kind of highway patrol you might expect in post-viral-Armageddon America. Probably military."

They had to make a decision. Wait and see if the patrol (if that's what it was), was friendly, or assume it wasn't and hide. Foreman looked over at the car. House was asleep on the back seat, his legs, far too long to stretch out on the seat of any conventional automobile, were bent at the knee, and all of him was wrapped up in a blanket. Wilson was smiling and holding the baby. Eli was looking over at the bus curiously. Why weren't they coming to see the new baby? his eyes questioned.

Hide how? "We go and meet the patrol up the highway." Foreman finally announced to Chase.

Chase stared at him. "How will that help?"

He shrugged. A uncertain tic of his shoulder. "I have no idea. But if they are hostile, I'd rather only some of get caught."

Chase looked over at the car. Foreman jumped from the bus and walked over to explain. He spent a moment or two pointing back up the highway. Eli's expression turned worried. Wilson's scared.

Forman walked back to the bus and hopped in the driver's seat once more. "I told them to take some water and food and get House and the baby into the woods. We'll meet the convoy. If they're friendly, great. If not..."

Chase understood the implications. If not, they could very well be in search of blue-eyed males. House wasn't safe. "What about the twins?" Chase knew Foreman had figured on them, too.

"We hide the twins, and maybe they'll leave all of us bargain basement brown-eyes alone."

Chase took a moment and wrapped the twins up in a box that had contained jars of preserved berries. He piled blankets loosely on top of them, leaving enough air space for there to be no danger of them suffocating. "Hey, little buddy." Chase picked up Jordan, found a seat half way toward the rear of the bus, and held onto him tightly.

Foreman turned the bus around once more and headed back up the highway to meet their either hostile or friendly encounter.

-

-

Eli tucked the blanket around House's sleeping form, and hefted him from the car. He would have preferred slinging him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes but, as Wilson pointed out, House had just had a baby and therefore his abdomen would be in a very tender condition, so any pressure might cause at worst - bleeding, or at best - pain. Eli carried him in both arms. It slowed his pace, made balancing more difficult and within minutes his back was aching. Eli ignored the pain. But this was House and Eli had promised himself that, whatever the cost to himself, if House needed something, he got it.

Wilson gathered up the tiny newborn, two one quart jugs, one filled with water and the other of formula, and shoved them into a back pack along with two jars of preserved venison and fruit. He had no idea how long they might need to hide out in the woods, so he gathered up a thick quilt also, throwing that over his shoulder.

House wasn't too heavy for Eli to carry some distance but the BM was in a deep post-partum sleep, and so dead weight. To complicate matters, the ground was rough with fallen trees and thick brush full of June bushes, their branches strung with small thorns. The going was uneven and both men began to lose their stamina not a half mile in from the car.

"This should be far enough." Wilson said and slung the pack to the ground. It was the thickest grove of trees in the immediate vicinity and it would serve as a shield against any wind. They had walked directly north of the highway, and by simply turning one-eighty, would have little difficulty stumbling across the highway again, even if their return course deviated a bit.

Eli didn't argue. House's one-eighty pounds had come to feel like five hundred, and for the time being, his strength was spent. "What do you think's happening with Foreman and Chase?" And their other eleven children.

Wilson shook his head, not wanting to imagine the worst. All he could think was that they should have stayed on the farm. This move could have waited a year or even two. But Foreman, once he had his mind on a course of action, was almost as bad as House in his stubborn refusal to deviate from it. Worse even, because Foreman had no idea how to ask for help. Neither did House, but at least he eventually asked. "We could always turn around and go home."

Eli didn't say anything. True, but then they would still be faced with the same problem. Not enough room, maybe eventually not enough food for so many mouths. Still, Eli looked in the direction of the highway. What was happening there? It was getting on to mid-afternoon and the light would be fading earlier as fall traveled on into winter. No snow on the ground yet of course, but the nights were getting a lot colder up in the hills.

A sound drifted on cool air that had managed to squeeze its way through the trees. Soft irregular thumps that came just a little farther into the trees. Eli looked around. There was still light enough even in the thicker woods to see the detail of the forest floor. Eli recognized those thick, muffled sounds. An axe chopping logs. He walked a few feet and was surprised to immediately come upon a narrow walking trail running parallel to the highway. It had not seen much use of men's boots in a long time, but was still visible enough beneath the new growth of clover and shoot-sprouting root systems.

The thumping sounds stopped, followed by a soft whistling. Eli recognized the tune; a ditty from a child's musical. Snow White, he thought. _Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to work we go....._

Eli thought it might be prudent to investigate the source of the thumps and the whistling, and made his way as quietly as possible up the path. It curved off to the right and then dipped sharply down a small grade. Near the bottom of the small hill, partially obscured by a grove of white-barked birch trees, sat a tiny log cabin no larger than their old kitchen had been.

Eli waited to see if anyone would emerge in the next few minutes. He was not disappointed. The figure that pushed open the door made of rough split longs, all nailed crosswise to a section of plywood was a very old, wild-haired man. He was carrying a break-action double barreled shotgun of uncertain vintage, and stopped to crack and load a shell into each of its chambers.

He was still a good twenty yards below where Eli stood, so he had not seen his unobtrusive visitor.

Snapping the thing shut with an expert hand, the old fellow started off down the same path upon which Eli stood, only in the opposite direction, much to Eli's great relief.

Once the man was out of earshot and there was no chance he could hear Eli's retreat, Eli scrambled back to where Wilson sat huddled beneath the thick quilt, House cradled in his arms, still in a deep, hormonally induced sleep. Eli crouched down beside his mates. "There's a cabin up ahead, just over the rise there. One old guy. Recluse or something."

Wilson felt a stab of fear. Though these days everybody was more or less a recluse. "What do we do? When did Foreman say he'd be back?"

Eli shook his head. He had no idea how much time had gone by. He guessed about thirty minutes or forty maybe. If things had gone well on the bus, Foreman should have been back by now, tramping noisily through the undergrowth, calling out to them. Other than the buzzing of insects in his ears, around them was dead silence. "I think I should walk back to the road. Take a look."

Wilson nodded. He hated to see him go, but there was no way he and House could go with him. Not until House woke up and could walk on his own, and that was ten hours away at least. "Okay."

Eli nodded and jumped up. He walked a few feet away, then, changing his mind, turned around and walked quickly back. Leaning down, he kissed Wilson quickly on the cheek and then House, far more tenderly, on the top of his head, his lips lingering just a few seconds longer than necessary. House was warm and smelled fine.

Eli looked straight at his mate, both of his brown eyes two on two with Wilson's - "I'll be _right_ back."

-

-

"How many adults on board?" The high late afternoon shadows were stretching out to the thin, alien shapes of early dusk.

"Two." Foreman answered, keeping his voice level, neutral, almost friendly but not quite. You never knew which would illicit suspicion in a stranger. Sincerity was an old-fashioned concept. Blind honesty, too.

Chase watched from the step of the bus, still holding Jordan in his lap. Some of the other children had started to fuss. For hours, no one in their large clan had eaten.

The government-appointed state trooper (who hardly looked like a road patrol, armed as he and his fellows were with automatic rifles, protective vests and Sheppard dogs with their noses into the air, sniffing for contraband and subterfuge), nodded efficiently, scribbling that fact down into his little paper note book with a pencil. The electronic conveniences of Blackberry's and Palm-tops were evidently still is short supply, although mean looking black-painted Hummers and military arms appeared plentiful. Whatever the new government was, it seemed to have arose from the ashes of its former life largely unchanged. Old worlds die quickly. Old attitudes do not.

"And how many children?" The military man asked. Though it was rolling into dusk, he had not removed his dark sun glasses.

"Nine." Foreman tried to keep his nervousness under wraps by not sweating, but it was hard with a gun waving around so close to his right knee, and a dog's nose so close to his crotch.

"Nine?" The man's was disbelieving. "My-oh-my, you two and your Blue've been awfully busy, haven't ya'? His tone was light, but a leering twist found its way to one corner of his mouth.

Foreman felt like telling the guy to got take a flying fuck. Wisely, he didn't. "What happened to your Breeder?" The man asked, one hand reaching down to scratch behind the dog's ears. The man wasn't a jar-head. Foreman was sure that if a Blue had been anywhere near-by, the dog would have already sniffed him out and alerted his beloved master to the contraband human.

"He died in child-birth." Foreman lied.

"M-huh." Like he heard it everyday. Maybe he did. "And where was this?"

"Back in Northern Montana. We had a small farm near a town called New Dawn. We buried him there, in the woods near the house."

"His name?"

"Uh - well, we just called him Jonesy. no last name, really."

"Lots of those, now. And how old was he when he died?"

Foreman pretended to calculate it out. "Um, well I met him when he was around seventeen, so I guess he was about twenty-four when he died."

"And any Blue-eyed children from him?" The fellow had been careful to take a good look at Chase, who's fair locks and coloring suggested blue eyes. Thankfully, Chase was a hazel-eyed male.

Forman shook his head, pretending to look a little sad about it. "No." He said quietly, like he and his mate had proved failures in that respect.

The fellow caught the idea. "Well, that's why we have Communities now. Just one more question: how many brown-eyes did your breeder pop?"

That kind of pissed Foreman off a little. _Breeder._ _Pop._ Like Jonesy or House, or any carrying blue-eye was some sort of high-priced hooker, bought and sold solely for the purpose of making babies.

_Communities._ Foreman wondered if the soldier was speaking of the facilities the likes of which Laurent used to run. Foreman realized he hadn't answered the man, who was now staring at him, waiting. "Uh, yeah. Um, including Jordan,..." Foreman almost said _nine_, but then remembered he had just lied about his "breeder" having died in childbirth. so he re-calculated. "Ten, one which died in-utero'."

At the fellows quick, questioning look, Foreman explained the slip-of-the-tongue jargon. "I used to be a doctor." Foreman hoped like hell there was no list of Laurent's former facility occupants anywhere within the soldiers purview of information-access that might contain his and Chase's names.

"Okay." The military man's tone was lighter and Foreman breathed a careful sigh of relief. Maybe his former status as a physician carried some weight as to honesty and forthright citizenship. "Thank you, sir. You'll be free to go as soon as we do a sweep of the bus."

Foreman's physician heart turned to Jello. "What does that mean - "_sweep_"?"

"Nothing to worry about." The man whose eyes no one could see, said. "Just routine, to confirm your information."

Foreman watched in helpless agony as a second man took the dog's lead and headed toward the school bus. Chase was asked to step out of the way, which he wisely did without argument, and the fellow entered the bus.

Chase quickly walked over to Foreman, his face a twist of confusion and fear. "What is he doing?"

Foreman could hardly make his tongue move. "Verifying that we're not hiding anything."

Which, of course, they were.

In seconds, their worst fear fruited.

The man re-appeared at the door to the bus and shouted to his five fellows. "Blues!" He said. "Two of 'em."

Right away the first man, the one who had asked all the questions, had his gun raised and trained on Foreman and Chase. "No Blue's huh?"

The second soldier with the dog waved two other men over to the bus and in minutes, the tiny twin boys were being removed from their wheeled home, each one wrapped in their own blankets, in the arms of a stranger.

Their lead interrogator, who still hadn't removed his dark glasses - Foreman idly wondered how the guy could still see in the gathering dusk - walked back over to them. He did not raise his gun, however, and that was some relief. Though he stood farther back than before.

Foreman felt like screaming. Or taking the guy's machine gun and beating his head in with it. But all he did was stand there like a civilian faced with overwhelming odds and ask in a voice on the edge of hysteria, "Where are you taking my boys?"

"It's the Law." The fellow explained. He didn't seem angry. "Government edict, drafted by President MacCray." The fellow quoted it for him: "All Blue-eyed children must be, by law, turned over to the state for re-adoption." The fellow interrupted his own monologue to add, "That means they'll be raised in A Community setting, and paired off with other Blues for breeding once they come of age."

Foreman right away bargained. "But we're their _fathers_. We can raise them just fine - we've all done just fine so far."

The fellow actually looked, if it was possible, a little embarrassed behind his Terminator glasses. "It's the Law, gentlemen. There's nothing I can do."

As the two other men carried the boys away toward, Foreman now noticed (somehow he'd missed it before), a Greyhound-type black, military looking bus parked farther up the highway, Foreman panicked, stepped forward and grabbed the man's arm.

The guy pulled away hard, and again raised his weapon. "Back off!" Then after a few seconds, seeing Foreman's fatherly, grief-stricken face, the obedient soldier, though he did not lower his rifle, said not without sympathy. "Look, I understand, okay. They're your _kids_ - I get it. It's why you lied, but there's nothing I can do, and nothing you can do either." He added with some warning, "And, if you know what's good for you and your remaining children, nothing you _should_ do."

Chase turned his face away, as though he was about to throw up. He clutched Jordan to his chest like if he didn't hold on, that child might disappear too.

Foreman couldn't help the tears that began to drop as he discarded all dignity and begged. "_Please_ don't take my kids."

The guy shook his head. "I'm sorry. You can take the rest of your family and go, but the Law says the Blues go with us. Presidential Orders. Only Blues can breed with Blues now. If we let them grow up surrounded by browns, . . ." The fellow trailed off as though he really wasn't sure himself about the full scientific reasoning (if there was any), behind the Law. For him, the underlying purpose went so far as: he was soldier doing his soldiers sworn duty.

Foreman cried openly now as his tiny babies were carried onto the distant waiting bus and disappeared from his sight. "Oh - _God_!" He turned in a circle, not sure where to go or to look for a solution. But of course, out there on the naked highway, alone in the falling dark, there was none. The government men had the Law and the guns to uphold it. He and Chase had nothing, but a bus full of babies to look after, and three mates to find. Attacking an armed military convoy would be suicide.

Chase was hugging Jordan to himself like a life-preserver, not looking at the bus at all. When Foreman walked back over to him, lead-blocks in his steps, joining his mate by their smaller, weaker, civilian bus filled with the unwanted brown-eyed children, Chase spoke, his voice quivering in held-back grief. "You know this is going to kill House?"

Foreman nodded. He felt nearly dead himself, but gathered the stoic, practical pieces of himself back together. "Come on," He whispered hoarsely, "we gotta get back there."

-

-


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Chapter 3**

FATHERLAND

Part III

**(Sequel to Remember Zion)**

By GeeLady

Time-line: Post final season. **Alternate Universe**/Future events

Summary: _"Suffer the children to come unto me. . .for such is the kingdom of heaven."_

Pairing: House/Wilson/Foreman/Chase/Others

Rating: NC-17 **SLASH** ADULT. **M-PREG!** Angst. (You have been warned).

EXTRA WARNING! THIS CHAPTER: _**NON-primary character death!**_

Disclaimer: The blue-eyed babe with the cane - _**sigh!**_ - is not mine.

A black Hummer pulled alongside the abandoned car. It's one occupant climbed out, switched on his flashlight because, although it was not yet dark, it was dim enough in this northern part of the country to make it difficult to see inside the vehicle. He peered in each window. It appeared empty save for a blanket on the back seat stained with something wet. He tried the door and it opened easily enough with a worn creaking of age.

Sniffing, the soldier wrinkled his nose. It stunk like sweat and something else. He sniffed again. Body fluid. Urine? Blood?

He made a circle with his right index finger and thumb, put it to his mouth and blew a single high note. In response his faithful canine companion leaped from the passenger seat of the Hummer and ran toward him, tongue lolling, ready to do his loyal work.

The dog, instinctively knowing what his master wanted him to do, picked up the scent of whatever was soaked into the blanket, and with his nose followed it off down the ditch and into the trees, trotting this way and that, his long muzzle to the ground, tracking a fading trail invisible to his master's eyes. He knew his master would follow him.

The soldier smiled with pride. "Good boy!" With his rifle drawn and ready, he jogged to catch up.

Foreman switched the school bus's engine off and let the hulking machine coast to a quiet stop on the soft shoulder of the highway.

Ahead on their left, just a few hundred yards up the road sat the car Wilson, Eli and House had occupied on their short, eventful journey. Near it was a military style black Hummer, quiet and empty.

With the engine stilled, the surrounding forest dark rushed in like a blanket. Foreman strained to hear anything above the insects buzzing around his head and the even softer sigh of the wind, but there was nothing. The quiet was so overpowering, his ears hurt.

"Shit!" Foreman whispered to Chase, deciding that keeping his voice down was a sound first plan. "Where the hell did he come from?" If there were soldiers in the nearby brush, they would have already been alerted to their presence by the large, brightly painted orange school bus.

Thankfully, no one appeared out of the woods. "They're probably still hiding." Foreman said to Chase.

Chase nodded. "The military must have showed up while we were up the road, being questioned." Figures. If a ruined world would have leftovers, those leftovers would be wearing fatigues and carrying cannons. "What do we do now?"

Foreman shook his head. "I don't know." He felt the outrage of the last few hours crushing down on his heart and spirit. His desire to exact justice for his lost children, though, infused him with a lust to run after the soldiers, however many there might be, and blast away with the rifle until none were left standing.

But Wilson, House, Eli and brand new tiny baby were also somewhere in those woods. "One of us has to go out there, I guess. Give me one of the lanterns."

Chase dug around in one of the boxes stored near the front of the bus and passed a lantern, its reservoir half filled with oil, to Foreman. A small box of matches followed. Foreman lit the small flame and adjusted it to give him the greatest light possible. It still wasn't much against the blackness that greeted him below the jagged line of the tree tops. Up there, stars sparkled faintly in a moonless sky. No help at all.

"This is nuts. What the hell ado you plan to do if you find them, or if the soldiers find you?"

"No idea." Foreman had a heart full of fury, and a desire for revenge poured into every cell of his body. It was a good place to start.

Foreman nodded to Chase. "Close the door after me. I'll be back before you know it."

Chase nodded back, sick at heart to watch another member of his family walk off into the night. "Just make sure you are." He said. His accent, in the heat of the stress they'd found themselves under, had vanished.

Eli came charging back through the brush, lantern in one hand, rifle in the other, almost tripping over Wilson in his haste to make time. "Come on." He hissed under his breath. "We gotta go. There's a soldier out there. I think he has a tracking dog with him."

Wilson understood immediately the danger to House. More than stranger's, was the fear of dog's noses. It was how House had originally been caught and sent to Laurent's Breeding Factory. Thereafter it was Wolf's dog-like sense of smell that had pinpointed House on their own farm. At the thought of the humble but relative safety of their abandoned home, Wilson felt a pang of terrible regret and longing. What had come of this hurried move of Foreman's, but more grief?

Wilson gathered up the baby and their meager provisions. Eli bent over, and in a great show of strength, lifted and heaved House one-armed over his right shoulder like a fireman. It wasn't the ideal way to carry a man who had just given birth, but danger had made comfort and safety second-rate players.

Wilson struggled to keep up with the lumbering giant of a man as he tried to hurry his steps. "Where are we going?"

"To that cabin." Eli said. "We can't out-run either of them. But maybe we can make a stand in there." Eli hoped like hell they could. He hoped the old man wasn't there or, if he was, that he was inclined to help them rather than blow their heads off with his shot-gun.

His answer came soon enough. Not fifteen feet from the door of the cabin, Eli and Wilson heard a low and dangerous snarl. "Stay right where you are. This is loaded and I'm a crack shot."

Eli licked his lips. Now what? "Look old man, we got a big problem-"

"-none of my concern, is it?" He snapped back. "I don't want any strangers here, especially not you Blue-eye hunting sons-a-bitches."

Eli started. "We're not hunters, we're Blue eyes-I mean we have a Blue-eye and he's being hunted right now."

That evidently gave the old fellow some pause as he didn't speak for a few seconds. "You're no Blue-eye, sonny. You think I'm a fool?"

"No. I'm not, but my mate here, is. He just gave birth to a baby Blue - look, there's a soldier out there with a dog and we need to hide them. You're a Blue, right?"

"What's it to ya'?"

"Nothing, it's nothing, but I mean- it's just-" A dog's throaty _Rowf!_ could be heard in the distance, and getting closer. Eli resorted to begging. "Pl-e-a-s-e! We'll lose them both." At the old fellow's mistrustful eyes. "Come on, old man, he's a _Blue_."

The old man stepped from the shadows into the light of Wilson's lantern. He was, indeed a Blue-eye. A very old, very wrinkled Blue-eyed man well beyond his breeding years, if he had ever had any. Eli doubted it. The fellow was eighty at least. Even rapid evolutionary mutations couldn't compete with nature's universal killer - time.

The man waved the barrel of his gun toward the cabin door. "It's unlocked."

Eli passed through the door that Wilson pushed open for them both. Inside the cabin was smaller than ever. One sagging bed pushed up against the longest wall. A bot-bellied cook stove, a tiny shelf with metal coffee percolator (the kind one set over a fire), one cup, one plate and a very old, faded picture of a woman with a crown of white hair. She had a smile plastered on just for the camera. Probably the old guy's dead wife. There was little else in the way of luxury.

The carcases of several dead grouse were hanging from hooks on the wall. A pot of water sat on the stove, boiling over the crackling fire within its iron stomach. The old fellow hung by the door. "One soldier?" He asked simply.

Eli lay House out on the single bed. Wilson handed Eli the baby and made a discreet examination of House to ensure he was not bleeding and still breathing well. For now, he seemed okay.

Eli nodded. "Yes. A dog, too."

"I heard." The old fellow stared at the three of them like he hadn't seen humans in years. Probably hadn't, since the spot he choose to live had effectively isolated him from whoever was left. "I can't stand Blue-hunters." He smiled like it was some kind of gleeful joke just between the three of them. "Put down one or two in my time."

The old man was a killer. Eli nodded, not sure what to say to that. Though presently, as helpful things went, it headed the list.

"Stay here. Get warm." He waved the gun at the stove. "There's hot water and bee's honey if you want it. Only one cup, though." He turned away. "I'll be right back." He swung the door shut with a kick of one scuffed-up, fur-covered boot.

Eli and Wilson spent several minutes warming up by the stove, waiting for the old man to return.

By jogging as quickly, but as quietly, as he was able, through the dry tree's and dead-fall, Foreman was just able to keep the soldier's flashlight in sight. Ahead it bobbed this way and that in the dark. Every-so-often the dog would let loose with another series of muffled barks, as his nose snuffed the ground, vacuuming up the scent of his prey.

Despite his own attempts at stealth, Foreman's boots still managed to find and snapped twigs, and stumbled this way and that as he searched and found footing over logs and roots. Much of the time, though, it was only with luck that he stayed upright.

But he dared not slow down. If the soldier found House and the others, he had no idea what then. Attack the soldier? Who's gun would be faster? Maybe with all three of them, the man and his relentless dog could be dealt with and, though Foreman hated to think they might have to, dispose of the bodies so they'd never be found.

One other thought kept swimming through all of the others, surfacing more often than any: All of this was his fault. If he hadn't been so arrogant, determined to be right about the necessity of the move, they would all still be back at the farm, cozy in their beds, maybe one or all of them sharing a warm, intimate session with House, and then nodding off all entwined in each other's bodies.

If wishes were horses...

Eli followed the old man through the dark. Despite the man's near antique physique, Eli was hard put to keep up with him. He only managed to keep the gap less than a few hundred feet. Impressive set of legs and lungs on such an ancient human.

Suddenly another light appeared, not the flickering glow of oil-fired lanterns, but the strong, bright beam of a battery powered torch that cut easily through the thickest black of the trees.

Eli pulled up short when he heard the old man's voice call out. "Stop where you are, or I'll blow you to straight back to hell."

That was followed by the dog's barking that turned to snarls. A shout from the soldier to _Hold! _was followed by the boom of the old man's cannon, and a sharp yelp.

Then gun fire. A second shot.

Eli crouched where he was, his heart in his throat. Which gun had met its mark?

"Shit!"

It was the voice of the younger man, the soldier. His dog was whining, but evidently, the old man's blast had missed anything vital as, in the soft outer circle of the torch's light, Eli could see the dog still sniffing around and the soldier checking for wounds. Apparently, none were very serious.

Perhaps the wind changed. Or perhaps the dog picked up on his rapid breathing only a few hundred feet away, or the soldier sensed another body near-by, but whatever had alerted the soldier and his dog, both of them started to move directly toward Eli.

Eli swallowed the lump of fear in his throat. He snuffed out the lantern, lifted the rifle to his shoulder and did his best to take aim in the dark. It was difficult, but the soldier was obliging in that he did not extinguish his own light.

Eli did not want to shoot this man. His arms shook as his finger set into the trigger. This soldier had done nothing to him. The problem lay, though, in what he might do, and not just to him, but to House and their brand new beautiful blue-eyed baby. "I'm not a murderer." Eli whispered to himself. He would like to leave this world having at least attempted to keep some ethics and morals intact. Though he had failed in that regard rather badly so far.

"Stay where you are!" He shouted into the night. Was it the right or wrong move to warn the fellow? What was right or wrong in a night forest with a newly murdered old man not two hundred feet away, a dog on your scent, a soldier who ran with child thieves carrying a machine gun, and all of that surrounded by a world of chaos?

To Eli's horror, the soldier did not stay where he was, he just extinguished his flashlight and kept moving toward him.

Silence for seconds only, then a single command from master to animal _- "Go!"_

Eli had three shots in the rifle's magazine. Just three. He waited until he could hear the pumping breaths of the dog only feet away, then fired. The first shot hit square and took the dog out in mid leap. Eli had to lunge aside to avoid the dog's body landing on him. But land it did, and did not get up again. Eli could smell pungent fresh blood pouring from the dog's exploded heart.

The soldier had to be there too, in the dark. But where? Soldiers were trained to hunt and be invisible, weren't they?

Eli heard the crack of a twig under a boot not his own. Even soldiers have off days. Eli pulled the trigger twice, and heard a satisfying gasp from the other man. Two more shots from the soldier's gun were fired and echoed off the hillsides like fire-crackers.

Then Eli heard nothing but his own heartbeat. The adrenaline that had been driving him for many minutes, drained from his body. He could feel the plug being pulled in his deepest parts as all energy washed out. He slumped against the tree that was no longer needed to conceal him, but to hold him up.

A wetness at his chest alerted him to where soldier man's final shots had struck. His shirt was rapidly soaking through with his own blood. Chest shot. Center shot. "Damn." He whispered.

Another set of boots, these not trying to be stealthy at all, found him in the night with the help of a second, shaky glow of a lantern. Foreman's dark face swam across his vision.

"Oh, goddamn-it." Foreman, having followed the shots in the night, crouched down beside him. "Eli." He tried to gather Eli's bulk under one arm. It was ridiculous.

"It's no good, Eric." His own voice sounded strange to him, disembodied, like his brain was thinking up the words without trying and his mouth making the words without moving. It was an new and interesting sensation. "Cabin. Back...'bout 'half mile...west of 'ere."

Foreman understood. That's where he would find House, Wilson and their child. "I can't leave you here."

"Sh-sure you can. Tell H-o-use I lv' 'im." A single shuddering breath and Eli groaned, the pain rocketing through him from front to back. When he could speak again, his voice was faint, tired. But resigned. Content to have it end as it was. Not like he had been given much choice. "God, I luv 'im s-so much..."

Foreman assured his dying mate "You can tell him yourself." But the doctor inside himself knew he was just saying the things that ought to be said when a man was bleeding out a foot from you, a half minute from death, and there wasn't a damn thing you could about it. Even doctors have off days.

"Tell 'im,..I'sorry." Eli locked eyes with his mate as the demons of fate, karma and shadows swooped down, preparing to take him from every good and bad thing he had ever known. "Owed 'im this much, 'nyway." He said, his last breath fading with "k-kiss the babies..."

Foreman saw the life go and the lips still on a man who had once been the enemy, but had turned friend, lover, protector. And now sacrifice.

Why can't all enemies be like him? "I'll tell him." He whispered, kissing Eli's forehead once, and jumping up. Foreman took one last look at his dead mate, then moved off through the trees, wanting to scream, but this was no time or place for it, if ever there would be. Mourning would have to wait its turn just like everybody else.

Moving Day One was at an end.

Had everyone not been wring out from pain, hunger and fear, they might have buried the bodies of the soldier and the old man, as well. But Eli was the only one they paused long enough over to say a few words and pile upon his body leaves and fallen logs, split apart by bears and other hungry critters. It was not a worthy burial, but it was all danger would afford them.

Foreman carried House, still unconscious in sleep and wrapped in the quilt and now also in the musty blanket of the cabin, back to the bus. Wilson had the baby and whatever provisions the thoughtful old fellow had left behind, plus their own.

Chase nearly cried with relief as his mates returned in the early streaks of dawn to the cold interior of the bus. The kids were awake, crying from thirst and hunger.

Wilson and Chase both started in on satisfying their children's tiny, empty stomachs with something more substantial than sips of water, which was all Chase had been able to manage during his hours alone with them in the dark.

Eli's fate was told him, and Chase shed a few useless tears for another death of a good man, but he wiped them away quickly. They did nothing. Saved nothing. Helped no one. So few of those around anymore - tears of mourning or good men.

As he held a bottle to their newest and tiniest member of the family, House's old and often scorned attitude about life kept coming back to his mind: _"Someone somewhere's always going to miserable sometime. Accept it." _

Chase whispered. "Everyone dies." House had always been right of course. Everyone _did_ die. But now Chase wondered if perhaps House had been talking about something other than random life events that eventually, naturally and expectedly, lead to the death of every mortal under the sun. He now wondered if House had meant that everyone _he_ every cared about always died or went away, and that reminding himself that everyone else would eventually lose those they took for granted, was a sort of macabre way of comforting himself. House's way of reassuring himself that others lost out, too, and he wasn't simply cursed to endure more grief than most men.

Wilson had been informed of the loss of his twin boys and had collapsed in his seat. He cried for a while and comforted himself by wrapping his arms around House, and burying his nose in his hair.

"Who wants to tell House?" Chase asked.

Wilson lifted his face from House's short curls, his voice hoarse and painful sounding "They're _my_ children." He kissed House's temple. A soft pressing of his lips to delicate skin. "He's _my_ mate."

Foreman nodded. There were BM sire-mates, like Chase and himself, who arrived as such by some affinity and familiarity and also by enormous, nearly overwhelming hormonal sexual drives.

And then there were men who loved each other above anything that mindless physical cravings could possibly produce, like Wilson's love for House. A sire and his BM that were together by choice from the beginning. Hormones hardly even made the list of why's.

Wilson sniffed, trying to bring his own bottomless grief under control, so he could be there to absorb the disintegration of House once the BM learned that his extra-precious twins were gone. "_I'll_ tell him."

Moving Day Two had just begun.

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Part IV asap


	4. Chapter 4

FATHERLAND

Part IVf

**(Sequel to Remember Zion)**

By GeeLady

Time-line: Post final season. **Alternate Universe**/Future events

Summary: _"Suffer the children to come unto me. . .for such is the kingdom of heaven."_

Pairing: House/Wilson/Foreman/Chase/Others

Rating: NC-17 **SLASH** ADULT. **M-PREG!!** Angst. (You have been warned).

EXTRA WARNING!! THIS CHAPTER: _**NON-primary character death!!!**_

Disclaimer: The blue-eyed babe with the cane - _**sigh!**_ - is not mine.

**By reader request, here is the House Family Tree thus far: **

Children By Foreman and House _**- Reid**_ and _**Gordon**_

Children by Wilson and House - _**Lee**_ (who was murdered by the town's people of East New Dawn), the _**Un-named still-born**_ (that House gave birth to in the woods outside of New Dawn), **_David James, Greg-Michael & John-Daniel_** (the twin Blue-eyes), and _**James Evan**_ (another Blue)

Children by Chase and House - _**Jordan, Rowan and Callum**_

Child by Danny ("Jesse") Johnson (who was murdered) and House - _**Shamus Drake Johnson-House**_ (whom House refuses to call anything but Drake)

Children by Eli (who was shot) and House - _**Reuben and Duncan**_

House also had one child by Josh (the kidnapper/rapist) whom he named _**Evan,**_ (who died of an untreatable metabolic condition known as Tyrosinemia - though House actually put his baby to death so he would not have to suffer any longer).

*So House has given birth fifteen times so far! Three children were either murdered or died of diesase et. al., and two have now been taken away by the State. Poor House!

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Wilson sat with his arms around House, sleep elusive, daylight cracking in cold pink streaks through a ceiling of cotton-ball gray.

Foreman and Chase had taken turns most of the night keeping several thick, squat candles lit to provide heat to the occupants of their mobile metal home, while re-tucking shifting blankets around the children and themselves.

Foreman had opted to take two watches during the night, and to deal with any fussing babies. The bus and all in it were silent and still.

Wilson's arms were almost numb from the awkward position of holding House upright and away from the frosted window for most of the night. His back burned as over-used muscles contracted this way and that in a futile dance of both trying to relax, and keeping House steady enough in his seat so he was able to do the same.

House would wake up any time, now, and ask after his children.

Wilson himself felt like dying with the knowledge of his stolen blue-eyed babies. It seemed something up above or down below wanted to keep him and House from producing very many, or keeping those they did manage to bring into the rottenest world in the universe. Maybe both God and the Devil had shaken hands on it. After all, Catholics believed that Satan was God's Prime Minister for the doling out of Hell's eternal punishment. One contract is as good as another.

Only their newest blue-eyed child, less than a day old, was still present and accounted for. Chase had taken personal charge of that treasured tiny self. His safety was rule number one now, above all others. Above themselves. Even above the other children, as no one was looking to take _them_ away.

Wilson thought the world had forgotten them. But just one day away from home, and he had been reminded like the stabs of a double-edged sword that Blue-eyes and their offspring were still very much on the minds of the world's powerful men. The men who were no doubt eating well while they made Policy, forgetting that policy affected living, breathing, feeling, fragile people, and not just statistics to be calculated well on down the years.

House stirred, and Wilson's heart broke for the tenth or hundredth time. There really were no words to ease into it. Losing a child was a walking death for a parent. Losing a child and not knowing whether they were alive or dead, was another, longer, more agonizing way to die. Indescribable to those who had not known it. An incomprehensible wound where the blood never quit flowing.

House raised his head, his eyes flickering open as he swiveled his neck to look around, and orient himself in relation to the bus, the others and then to Wilson.

"Hey." Wilson said quietly. All the others were asleep, even Foreman, with one of the smaller children wrapped up in a blanket in his lap, his arms firmly around him.

House opened cracked lips. "Hey." It was more a squeak than a word. Then he remembered where, what, who, how and all the tearing pain that had gone along with it. "Where's the baby?"

Wilson put a shaking finger to his lips. "Shhh, everyone's still asleep. The baby's fine. Healthy."

"Who does he look like? Me or you?"

Wilson's insides were splitting apart, his mind a wind whipped everywhere and no where. There _were_ no words, _**no**_ _words!_ - nothing came to him that would make it easy or even real. "You - so he's gorgeous." Delay. Talk about the baby. Talk about anything. "What do you want to call him?"

"James Evan House."

Two out of three after himself. Wilson suddenly felt unworthy. Hadn't he and the other sires lost House's other precious ones to strangers without a fight? Without hardly a protest? "R-really?" No, not worthy. "Wouldn't you rather-"

"It's James Evan. Suck it up. Like you don't _want_ to."

Wilson tried hard to accommodate House's light attempt at humor, but he could not form a smile when all he could manage in his secret center was to keen like the last mammal on earth. "House - "

"Evan was the baby I had when I was at...Ass hole's place. The baby I buried."

Wilson felt his stomach grow as cold as the early dawn air. A shiver traveled from his spine to his toes. "House, Foreman, we,...there's no go-"

House wasn't listening as he struggled to his feet.

Wilson reached out a hand to stop him but it fell short by an inch. "House, wait a sec-"

"Gonna' see the babies - hang on." House sounded relieved. Even content. Daddy hormones raging to be near his children. A hunger to touch them and smell their skin. To re-introduce himself to the beings he had brought forth within a space of agony and within a envelope of instant _man_-ternal, eternal love more powerful than intelligence could devise a sensible filing system for. House wasn't just their birth-dad - he was their doting, adoring Mommy.

Wilson felt his arms lose all definition. He slumped in his chair, suddenly too weak to scramble after House or even open his mouth in protest. All he could manage were feeble whispers of warning in the form of soft gasps. Whispers that didn't make it past his own ears. "House....d-don't..." Silent tears were the rest of his broken speech, but of which House was not aware, walking as he currently was, to the rear of the school bus, carefully lifting back folds of blanket, searching through the tiny and medium sized wool bundles, for his precious, miraculous twin baby Blue's.

House finally stopped at Chase, who stirred awake at his nearness. Chase shook himself to life within seconds, looked quickly over at Wilson, who had his back turned to them. Wilson would be of no help at this terrible juncture. His shoulders were shaking in a self-perpetuating, silent sob.

"Where's the -?" House began when he could not easily spot the twins, whose position among the many benches and boxes was, weirdly, not obvious.

Foreman was wake now, too, gathering the scene unfolding before him. Did House already know? Given his searching gaze, that in the space of seconds had grown puzzled, and now, alarmed, it was unlikely. Foreman felt his chest tighten at the thought. Wilson had insisted he be the one to tell House, but Foreman saw that Wilson was in no shape to do a thing but deal with his own bubbling cauldron of grief. They were all sick at heart, to one deeper degree than another.

None of them had any idea how House was going to take it. Did the experience of losing children once or twice before, give grease to the third or fourth? Did it help the agony slide by any quicker?

Foreman coughed, clearing his throat, but the lump remained. "House - the twins..."

House stopped his visual, increasingly panicked search of the bus, and rested his eyes like lasers on Foreman's face. Gun barrels ready to fire. The irises, the color of cornflowers in youthful bloom, now stared still as the frozen North, now a shade of freezing blue; the shade of ancient ice set in its ways.

Foreman's last three words - House could see and taste the unclean inflection in them. Nothing within, not a syllable, contained good reassurance or a tinge of hope.

Foreman licked his lips. Find the magic words, he thought. Which ones would be easier? Loving? Gentle? What would House accept? The truth was all there was.

_This is all my fault. The kids, Eli, where we are, Wilson sitting over there by himself - __**losing**__ it. House about to wrap his hands around my deserving throat. All my fault. Every bit._ The truth had to be told and Foreman now knew, no matter who's fault it was: his, the government's, their gun-toting, dog-handling henchmen, or God on his laughing throne, he would never forgive himself.

House answered the only way he knew how. Fury in a spring-trap box. He broke the nightmarish stalemate, whispering to Foreman, the man who had designated himself, without even a vote of confidence, the un-official leader of their odd but loving family - "Where the _fuck_ are my children?"

Foreman stood, placing his hands on House's bony shoulders, who immediately shook them off. House was already shaking. Just a tremor behind his eyes. A twitch to his lip.

"Those state troopers we ran into?" Foreman began, "They were government army. Regular soldiers, or inductee's - I'm not sure. Maybe both. They,...told us that there is a new Law that was passed just a short time ago..."

House took one step back, almost falling in his haste to put a few feet between himself and Foreman.

No words were fine enough. Ridiculous to think they might be. Foreman stepped forward to close the gap, fearing House was about to faint.

But House took another step back. "What did you do?"

It shocked him, the accusing tone. A kick to his gut. "I didn't do anyth - they _took_ the kids, House. They took the _twins_. The Law, it says Blue-eyes - adults, babies, all have to live under government programs, some fucking adoption program - some Community they've set up somewhere to keep Blues with Blues, so the population will increase that much faster, I guess. We had no _choice_."

"You just...._let_ them," ("_Let"_ House had said as though it was a dirty word and Foreman ought to have his mouth washed out with soap for speaking it), "take my babies??"

Foreman wanted to grab House and hold him, if the man would have ever allowed it, but instead he stammered, half in panic that he was about to be perhaps banished from House's presence forever, and half in self-defense. "There was no "let" about it. They had a dozen guys and automatic weapons - and dogs. We had a school bus full of kids and an old rifle with no bullets. We tried to hide the kids, but they searched the bus - the dogs sniffed them out. House - I'm sorry. _God_ I'm so sorry, but there was nothing we could do. We were defenseless-"

"Adoption..." House whispered, turning from Foreman, "...community..." ignoring the rest of Foreman's excuses or reasons - neither made any difference, and was cripping to the front of the bus, forgoing his cane hooked over the back of the driver's seat, by-passing even weeping Wilson in his hurry to disembark and go away, go anywhere. A highway's width, a patch of grass, dry with wind and lack of rain. Any distance manageable, even a few hard, gimping yards, until his leg screamed at him.

Foreman watched helplessly as House stumbled to the curb of the highway and sat down hard on the gravel, his knees bent and his arms loose at his sides. He was a rag doll abandoned by indifferent arms long since passed by, and gone up the highway to better places for sure.

House's shoulders were not shaking. He didn't even bow his head or hide his face in trembling fingers. Truth brought out the extreme in emotion from some people. From House it brought out acceptance, if however loathed and hated, still - acceptance. House was nothing if not resilient.

But there was a stillness in him that was more disturbing than calming. A man had sat down, but a mannequin seemed to have settled in. Forman shook Wilson's shoulder to spring him from his cone of grief. "Wilson. House needs you, man." Then sharply - "_Wilson_!"

At the urgency of Foreman's voice, and at hearing his own name, Wilson finally raised his head to look where Foreman pointed.

"If House is going to lose it," Foreman half explained-half encouraged, "well, you know him better than either of us. I think you'd better get out there."

Wilson wiped his eyes, sick of crying. Filled with grief and so goddamn tired of giving his space up to it. "Oh-h-kay." He took a breath to bring his senses back into strength of order, (if no other strength), and stepped off the bus.

House didn't comment or even look when Wilson sat down beside him. "Sorry." Wilson said. Fucking joke word for something like this. "I wanted to tell you, but I... I mean, I can't even _think_ about them without,.." Wilson almost laughed at how pathetic he knew he must look., eyes puffy and red, hair mussed, face streaks with salt-water tracks, "...without going crazy-nuts. Without feeling like I'm losing my mind. I really, _really_ just want to..._kill_ something, you know?" A few more tears. Aftershocks. Winding down to the last electro-chemical spurt of energy in his whole body. If he thought it would help either of them, Wilson would take House right there, urgent and desperate as a lone sin, plant in him two more children for House to grow and then give back. Exchange love and then exchange love's perfect gifts.

But nothing would help. Help was as lost as they were.

House was examining his fingers, picking at the cuticles. He nodded. A small acknowledgement but absolutely nothing else at all. Incredibly, just moments after learning of the abduction of his twin babies, it was impossible to tell what House was thinking or feeling. No doubt a tidal surge of grief - but what else? Feeling death closing in maybe?

Wilson felt those, so he guessed he was close if not right-on-the-money. Though what else was transpiring behind those eerily calm eyes he had no idea. That still, handsome face had grown a mystery in its form, a blank over an animated surface. The two of them could have been just as easily sitting on a beach staring out to spring tides and body surfers as watching their tender existence of family being taken apart one soul at a time on the cold, lonely highway at the end of the world.

They, powerless to prevent it. Blind to foresee-ing.

Wilson placed his left arm over House's shoulders. "Stupid question but - do you think maybe - are you going to be okay?" Wilson didn't look at him. Instead he found a boring pebble, one among thousands, to pay attention to for a minute. "It makes me a selfish ass, I know, but I _need_ for you to be okay, House. If I lose one more person...if that person's _you_..." Wilson shook his head in defeat. The bell for the last round must have been rung somewhere beyond their reach. Someone else's arena, someone else's rules. "I don't think I'd survive that, too." He took House's head in his hand and drew it toward his own until the sides of their foreheads touched.

Encountering no resistance - "Though, hah, not actually sure I'm going to survive _this_."

Wilson suddenly needed to kiss House to check if he was still there, inside somewhere. And to see if, in turn, he himself was present in spirit and not just form. Sometimes you just had to slap flesh to know one way or another.

House kissed back. An obedient, lifeless touch of mouth, his lips dry. Loose. Malable. He had not said one word the whole time by the miserable ditch.

Wilson looked at him. House stared back, unblinkingly, the questions in his eyes unsaid but unwavering. It was as though he was waiting for Wilson's newest dissertation on life and why in the hell it was suddenly sucking so badly. And, after that, waiting to hear the solution.

When Wilson had none to offer, House looked crestfallen.

Wilson decided to oblige those searching blue orbs, though he had no idea, beyond the faces of his lost children, what House was looking for. "Come on, maybe it'd be a good idea if we all got going now."

House nodded and accepted Wilson's hand to rise from the uncomfortable rocks. Wilson's ass hurt in several places from the cutting edges of the pebbles.

They walked back to the bus and Foreman and Chase greeted them silently, with eyes only. Sad looks begging for forgiveness for things they could have done nothing about. House looked back, the barest fleck of recognition in his eyes that said he of course understood that.

Foreman, eyes bloodshot and body tired to the depths of his aching and aging bones, climbed in behind the wheel and fired up the bus. He pulled the long vehicle onto the empty highway, turning its black and orange nose West again. When he approached the point where the roadblock had been, he was relieved and crushed, to see it was no longer there.

The army men had packed up their gear, guns and dogs - and House's babies - and driven off who knew where in all bloody rotten creation.

Foreman geared up and steered their metal home toward...elsewhere. Visions of farms and peaceful re-building of life had faded from his mind like false laughter. What a foolish vision of peace that had been. What a vision. Painting. Dream. Ethereal hope.

Foreman kept his dead eyes on the snaking, mountain road.

What other of the world's ruses awaited them?

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Part V asap


	5. Chapter 5

FATHERLAND

Part V

**(Sequel to Remember Zion)**

By GeeLady

Time-line: Post final season. **Alternate Universe**/Future events

Summary: _"Suffer the children to come unto me. . .for such is the kingdom of heaven."_

Pairing: House/Wilson/Foreman/Chase/Others

Rating: NC-17 **SLASH** ADULT. **M-PREG!!** Angst. (You have been warned).

Disclaimer: The blue-eyed babe with the cane - _**sigh!**_ - is not mine.

**As by reader request, here is a short family tree for the House family in FATHERLAND:**

Children By Foreman and House - _**Reid**__ and __**Gordon**_

Children by Wilson and House - _**Lee**_ (who was murdered by the town's people of East New Dawn), the _**Un-named **_still-born (that House gave birth to in the woods outside of New Dawn), _**David James, Greg-Michael & John-Daniel **_(the twin Blue-eyes), _and__** James Evan **__(_another Blue)

Children by Chase and House - _**Jordan, Rowan and Callum**_

Child by Danny ("Jesse") Johnson (who was murdered) and House - _**Shamus Drake Johnson-House **_(whom House refuses to call anything but Drake)

Children by Eli (who was shot) and House - _**Reuben**_ and _**Duncan**_

*House also had one child by Josh (the kidnapper/rapist)whom he named_**Evan**__, (_who died of an untreatable metabolic condition known as Tyrosinemia - though House actually put his baby to death so he would not have to suffer any longer).

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Three hundred miles seemed about the right distance to ease back on the throttle, slip the choking engine from fourth, to third, to second, and finally to first, carefully easing the forty foot behemoth off the highway, and into a small turn-about. Present was an out-house, trees and a picnic table. The day was cool but sunny. A nice place to eat outside and breath air that didn't smell of diesel fuel and poop-filled nappies.

Wilson prepared jarred vegetables and jerky for lunch. Chase and Foreman mashed preserves of fruit and carrots for the older babies. Chase also heated five chilled bottles worth of formula in a tin pot set over the single flame Bunsen burner that had been pressed into service as a re-heater of food. This would be their big meal of the day. Preparing even simple meals inside the bus in near dark proved a difficult task. Cold left-overs usually had to suffice for the evening repast.

House listlessly chewed a few spoon-fulls of vegetables, then curled up in a blanket on the rear seat of the bus and slept the day away.

"How much farther?"

Foreman scooted over and made room for Wilson at the picnic table. Both men were in their heavy coats and scarves because of the fall wind. Between the trees, snow had blanketed the ground-cover to stay put for five months. The area on the lower side of the tree line, however, had the sun on it and so it was still nice enough to eat out doors despite the wind. Never-the-less, as pretty as everything looked, they had hauled the decrepit picnic table to with a few feet of the front door of the bus in case they needed to make a hasty retreat.

Foreman understood Wilson's meaning. How much more of this impulsive, ill-conceived move was he going to inflict on his family. "Another day, unless we locate a nice farm with a way larger, decent enough house on it. Then I'm all for settling down again." This time for good.

"House hardly ate anything again today." It was losing children. House was bereft of his precious twin blue-eyed boys and was sick over it. "I'm really worried about him."

Foreman thought to himself that, yes, he was worried, too. "I was thinking about what to do about that. I mean, not the depression, but our boys. I can't imagine that military convoy traveling a thousand miles just to set up a road-block on a remote Montana highway, or Idaho."

Wilson looked around him. "Are we in Idaho?" The trees looked much the same as Montana trees, the air smelled the same. "When did we get here?"

With his silverware fork (a tarnished, old-world-charm affair with most of the silver scrubbed off), Foreman stabbed a small, round potato out from a cracked ceramic cereal bowl that had been transformed into a lunch dish, bit off half of the luke-warm vegetable and chewed. "Early this morning."

Wilson asked "You're thinking whatever place they took the babies, it has to be fairly close by."

Foreman nodded. "Yeah. Babies need food and diaper changes, cuddling, more food, and then _more _diaper changes."

Babies were helpless, needy things that wouldn't hesitate to make the soldiers lives a screaming living hell until they got what their body's told them they needed. "Somewhere within fifty miles maybe?"

"Maybe less, maybe more." He recalled the lengthy black transport into which the soldiers had carried the twins. There were probably blue-eyed babies being confiscated up and down the northern highways and then, when the army guys felt they had enough (or had had enough of ear-fulls of fussing, hungry kids for a day), drove them to where and whatever their headquarters were, and dropped them off. The next day coming back out for more.

"We're all pretty tired, Foreman." Chase reminded him, busy wiping the tender bottom of one of his own children right on the picnic table. Not the most appetizing sight, he knew, but through the years of deprivation and the daily struggle just to survive, they had all learned to disregard the finer things in life. Several more babies waited in line, and Chase was bundling them up and bringing them outside one by one, to change them in the fresh air. After days on the confining bus, the interior had begun to smell like a diaper-bin. "This move has been less than the _best_ idea you've ever come up with."

Foreman dropped his fork into the bowl with a clatter. "Don't you think I _know_that?" He said sharply. The newly changed Callum began to cry at the din. Hearing someone yell was a new thing for him, so rarely did the tall people ever raise their voices to each other.

Foreman left the splintered table and stalked off to the bus. He busied himself by raising the hood and checking oil and other fluids.

Wilson sighed. "He probably blames himself already, you know."

Chase nodded. "Probably." By his pensive look, he obviously had something more on his mind and Wilson waited patiently until, finally, he spoke again. "Do you think House is going to get better? Or has he lost it for good?"

"Maybe." Wilson hoped not, because hope was about all they had left. Since the loss of his twins, House had not ventured outside the bus other than for trips to the bushes. Wilson shook his head but not because he thought Chase was wrong, but because he truly didn't know. Wilson wasn't even that sure about himself. "He's lost five kids now." It was enough to set any man off the straight path. Wilson had never let himself think about his two murdered sons (even though the second one had been still-born, the circumstances surrounding the infants death were such that, as far as he was concerned, it had been murder), and now the twins..."I'm not doing so well myself." In fact, he felt a cold stone at the center of his chest where he was certain he'd once harbored a heart.

"Maybe if we get him to another place, and he settles in, he'll snap out of it." Chase didn't sound like he believed it himself, but secretly applied the hopeful words to his own hope. Both men - really, all of them - had been through enough. "Maybe we should head North?"

"No guarantee that things will be any different there."

That was true of course. The viral apocalypse hadn't recognized lines on a map. Canada, or what was left of it - or Mexico, as far as they had learned, had not been spared either. No place on the planet had been left untouched. For the virus, one soul had been almost as good as another. All of the women, and most of the Blue-eyed men, were dead. Wilson wondered how many people were left in the world. Ten million? Five hundred million? A billion? He doubted it was that high.

Wilson watched Foreman checking and re-checking the fluid levels. "Excuse me." He left the table and approached his anxious mate. Coming up behind him, he wrapped his arms around him and said. "I think you've got those licked."

Foreman dropped tense shoulders, grateful for Wilson's hands-on forgiveness.

"Come on," Wilson urged, "let's get this show on the road."

Foreman shrugged, and Wilson felt his mates internal struggles in that gesture. Foreman had made mistakes and now was running low on the strength needed to be a leader. After Eli, after their babies taken away, maybe forever, who would support him now? "Where do _you_ think we ought to go?"

Wilson hugged him tight, and kissed his neck once. "Well," He tried to make his voice less gloomy. Some encouragement all around never hurt anyone. "I always liked the beach. How about California?"

-

-

They passed into Oregon, turning south at Lakeview, crossing the state border into California. The border sign had been knocked down, its wood confiscated for, Foreman guessed, firewood. They turned west once more at Alturas. Stopping for the night in a road-side rest area, they slept and at the break of dawn Foreman once again steered the bus westward through Fall River Mills, Redding and Lewiston. Snaking their way south and west, until the road widened into a twinned highway. There was nowhere to go now but straight ahead. It wasn't long before they found themselves approaching another town.

"Hey." Chase said. "Check it out."

Foreman pulled up to a sign set atop two stone cairns sitting on a section of grass in the center of the split highway. The sign itself was made of a slab of thick Cedar, or perhaps Redwood. The varnish had been worn through in some places from the weather. It read: _**"Welcome to Rio Dell".**_

There was a second sign below it, however, that was made of press-board, hand-painted white with many words in black, and tied against one of the stone cairn supports. Someone had clearly erected this sign so that all who entered would understand some elemental things about the towns people.

Foreman leaned over the steering wheel and read aloud the thing in its entirety for the rest of his mates: _**"You are in NEW CALIFORNIA. This is a FREE STATE! We, the freedom-loving citizens of New California, Under GOD:**_

_**- DO NOT RECOGNIZE the Interim Government of the so-called New United States. **_

_**-We DENOUNCE the illegal and immoral incarceration of FREE Blue-eyed citizens. **_

_**-We CONDEMN the theft of children anywhere in FREE AMERICA, and we **_

_**-DENY the New United States Military Machine any foot-hold on our soil. **_

_**If you are not with US, you are with THEM - BE WARNED!" **_

Foreman looked back at his partners. "Well, whaddya' say? I vote that we're _not_ with "them"."

"How about we hold up here for a day or so?" Foreman's back ached and his ass was numb from sitting on the thin padding of the driver's seat, and was glad he got no argument from either Chase or Wilson. House, of course, didn't peep.

Chase and Foreman spent a half hour scouting around near-by for a likely little house in which to take refuge and rest up a bit.

"House?" Wilson shook him awake. "We're stopping here for a day or so. Come on. I found you a comfortable bed."

House stirred and, eyes mucked with days of sleep, simply obeyed. He didn't even ask any questions, merely did what he was told with little reaction or concern. Wilson showed him the tiny stucco house they had chosen, and lead him up a set of carpeted stairs to a cozy little room at the end of the hall next to the home's only bathroom. Miraculously, although there was no running water, there were several rolls of toilet-paper sitting on a shelf in otherwise empty linen closet.

Wilson brought in bottles of drinking and cooking water. Bucket by bucket, Chase drained the hot water tank half-way (that now held only now cold), emptying them one after another into the tub to use for washing bodies and then, with the remained of the water, washing clothes. Soon the tub was just under half full, ready for its first occupant.

He also filled a second, small wash basin to use as bath-water for the children.

Each of the men would take a bath in turn then, after emptying and re-filling the tub, the clothes would be hand-washed, wrung out and hung to dry on whatever curtain rods or other likely surface to be had. Hanging clothes outside risked losing them to thieves (if any were around), or signaling too clearly to any who might wander by that the house was occupied and that there might be goods to be taken for a man with a gun but lacking conscience.

With his hands on his shoulders, Wilson guided House to the bathroom. Because of his leg, it was decided that a few pots of heated water would be added to the bath water to make it at least middling to warm, so as not to shock his already tender thigh which, from the way House was resting his weight only on the counter and his left leg, had to be aching badly.

Wilson closed the door, helped House out of his tee-shirt, jeans and thread-bare boxers, the new white cotton of them now gray and thin with repeated hand-scrubbings using home-made bar-soap and effort. Next Wilson gently urged House to sit on the toilet, and he did so without a word. His mis-matched socks were peeled off and added to the pile of the dirty clothes.

House shivered in the unheated room. Wilson quickly helped him into the warm water (just on the side of warm, but better than the cooler air), easing him down into a sitting position. House drew his legs up against his goose-bumped chest, the hair on his arms standing at attention. Wilson quickly stripped off his own clothes and, placing his feet just to the side of House's buttocks, slipped down into the water with him.

This was to be no water-sport sex romp. Wilson intended on giving his mate a skin softening, soul-slaking, old fashioned bath. Taking the bar of soap between his hands, Wilson worked it hard to encourage lather. Finally it foamed up a little and he applied it first to House's hair, head and neck, using his fingers to coax the dirt and oil away from the scalp. Rinsing with a chipped coffee cup, dipping it in the water over and over, he set it aside, then took first House's right, then his left arm and lathered up both, stroking the bar of soap up and down House's long muscles, making the bath into a combination soak and amateur but loving and thorough massage session.

After a few minutes of rubbing the sudsy stuff back and forth across House's chest and down his strong legs as far as he could reach (which was not any farther than his knees. It wasn't a very large tub), Wilson could feel the tension in House's back ease, finally relaxing under his fingers, as though the hard material of the last few days that had set up beneath his skin, making a hard shell of him, and shielding his insides from the world that insisted on having its own way with him, was finally softening, leeching out through his pores, making him cleaner of spirit and not just of skin.

House lay back against Wilson's chest and luxuriated in the sensations of having his every need taken care of. Wilson was trustworthy, he remembered, and he leaned the weight of his whole upper body against his mate's willing chest. Wilson always helped him through these things, whatever they happened to be, and it was wonderful being wrapped up in the water and Wilson's kind arms, feeling clean, at least physically, and calmer inside - less shattered, for the first time in many days. House let out a tremendous sigh, and whispered "Thanks."

Wilson shook his head. "No need. I wanted to do this. Been dreaming of it, actually. You think you're not worthy to be fussed over?" House didn't answer and Wilson kissed the back of his head. "I'll find our kids, House, you can count on it."

Wilson surprised even himself at how determined he sounded, and felt. He would find them. He'd search until he was an old man if he had to, but he would find his twin boys. He do it or die trying, no matter what or who stepped across his path.

Wilson could feel the sudden jerk from House's torso that told him House had finally relaxed enough to cry a little over his stolen babies, and Wilson silently praised the emotional, if almost silent, outburst. It was a healthy sign that his mate had not slipped down into himself too far; that he had not disappeared from everyday life, even one as harsh as this one sometimes was, for good.

Wilson kissed him again, a few small strokes of his lips on his head and neck. "We're not beat yet."

-

-

The next day, to their shock, several men could be spotted walking down the street, as though heading to the town square. They appeared to have a destination in mind, and that was as good a guess as any, since they were all moving more or less in the same direction. But there were no stores open where milk could be fetched, probably no schools where teachers were waiting for the children to fill their heads with numbers, history and art, and no laundromats where shirts could be dropped off to be cleaned, so Foreman, staring through the small crack of the curtained front window, was curious to know where the - he counted about a two dozen men - were headed. "Weird."

Chase had heard him, joining him at the peep-crack. "I wonder where they're going?"

Foreman closed the curtain. "Only one way to find out."

Chase stared at him like he was crazy. "You're not thinking of joining in?"

"Of course not, but I think one of us should follow them to see what's up."

Now Chase knew he was crazy. "That isn't a group of our best friends out there - we don't have an idea who the hell they are. This place could be another New Dawn for all we know. I think we should just gather up anything this old house has to offer and get the hell out of Dodge while we still can."

Foreman glanced out the crack again. The crowd has disappeared. "I doubt it's anything like New Dawn. Remember the sign? Besides, I didn't see any guns. Most of them were dressed like us - they were _walking_, so they have no vehicles or gasoline. I'm surprised no one's noticed the school bus parked out back."

Chase huffed. "We have no idea if these people wrote that sign nor not. Maybe they're a batch of marauders who've already wiped out the sign-painters. Maybe they're just waiting for us to let our guard down? Wait until we _stupidly_ separate so they can come in and take what they want."

The _stupidly_ was directed at himself, but Foreman still considered the risk worth it. "I'll take all the risk. I'll follow at a good distance and find out where they're going, try to learn what they're all about. That way, we'll know for sure if we have to run again, or maybe have the freedom stay for a few days longer, and really rest up. Maybe find more food or even diesel."

Wilson entered the room.

"House still asleep?" Chase asked. He hated to be petty, but House had been basically shrugging off any daily work or help with the children, and he himself was growing tired of pulling double-duty.

"I think he's better. He talked last night and, ...well, he's mostly come out of it. Whatever it was." Wilson shrugged. Grief. His own had only faded to a dull roar. He doubt it would ever stop its assault, though.

That House was speaking again was good. For the last few days, he'd looked like a man just home from the front. The shock of having his babies torn from him, Foreman thought. The gaping wound left behind when a man was sheared of his soul. "Good news. Think you two'll be okay for an hour or so?"

Chase brought Wilson up-to-date on Foreman's idea. "I think it's dangerous," Wilson agreed, "but it would be nice not to have to travel for a while. I think it's worth the risk." He looked directly at Foreman. "Just make sure it's a very small risk. If there's any chance you might be spotted, you have to promise to get the hell out of there."

Foreman nodded. They were only three now. Any less and the last two would be hard pressed to survive with so many children. But Foreman had no intention of being spotted. But he took the rifle anyway, placing a single shell in the chamber, only for an extreme emergency. He also had no intention of shooting anyone, but these days assuming you'll be okay was idiocy. "I'll follow them, unless it looks like they'll be going miles. If it looks that way, I'll turn back."

That seemed to satisfy Wilson and Chase and Foreman started after the group of strangers, keeping well to the shadow of the rows of small houses that lined the street on both sides.

-

Once he caught up to the group of men, Foreman didn't have to follow them far. It was as he had guessed. The group entered a small building set off from the town square beyond a wide expanse of lawn. The building appeared to be more of a house than a hall, but a sign on the lawn read: _**1965 RIO DELL City Hall**_

Foreman waited until all the men had climbed the stairs, entered and the door closed behind them.

Staying as much to the trees and bushes as possible, Foreman ran like a deer across the grass and situated himself along the right side of the building. Here there was concealing shadow and he was obscured from almost every vantage point from on the street or lawn out front. Out back was a hill spotted heavily with evergreens. He had good cover.

On the side of the structure there was a small window about ten eight from the ground, but it was closed. He couldn't hear a thing that was going on inside. Looking around, he spotted an old wood chair someone had set outside the rear entrance. It's seat was cracked but it still looked like it could hold weight. Foreman carefully maneuvered it beneath the window and stepped up one foot on it. It felt solid enough. As he put all of his weight on it, the chair's wood feet dank down a bit into the grass but otherwise it remained steady.

Foreman could just see through the bottom inch of the window, and voices drifted through to his ears.

"The last citizen to leave Rio Dell was ambushed on the highway." It sounded like someone was standing at a podium, giving the local news. "Alistair and Richard lost everything, including their only precious Blue. Thieves! Thieves and criminals run the highways now, stealing and selling our very children to the government's illegal and immoral orphanages. So we must protect ourselves not only from the military might of the falsely appointed government, but now from our own States people. This meeting was called to address these issues and what might be done."

So it was a town fighting for their right to birth _and_ parent Blues, and it sounded like they were having only marginal success in protecting that right. Foreman tried to hear more, but the men in the audience were facing away from him, and it was difficult to catch more than a word here and there. But he gathered from what he did hear that others in the area had lost blue-eyed children to either the government, as they had experienced, or to highway thieves who then sold the babies to the government orphanages. apparently, the buying and selling of Blue-flesh was alive and well.

Perhaps here, though, they might be offered more protection than if they kept traveling on their own, searching for a haven that could very well turn out to be no haven at all. Perhaps this was their haven?

-

Foreman slipped inside the back door of their tiny borrowed dwelling, placing the rifle on the table, though first taking a moment to pop the single shell from its chamber. Chase and Wilson heard him enter. Wilson saw him first. "Well?"

Holding Baby Evan, Chase, too, waited with an anxious face.

"We'll talk about it, and vote on it of course, but from what I was able to gather, I think we might have just found a home."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Part VI asap


	6. Chapter 6

FATHERLAND

Part VI

**(Sequel to Remember Zion)**

By GeeLady

Time-line: Post final season. **Alternate Universe**/Future events

Summary: _"Suffer the children to come unto me. . .for such is the kingdom of heaven."_

Pairing: House/Wilson/Foreman/Chase/Others

Rating: NC-17 **SLASH** ADULT. **M-PREG!!** Angst. (You have been warned).

Disclaimer: The blue-eyed babe with the cane - _**sigh!**_ - is not mine.

**As by reader request, here is a short family tree for the House family in FATHERLAND:**

Children By Foreman and House - _**Reid**__ and __**Gordon**_

Children by Wilson and House - _**Lee**_ (who was murdered by the town's people of East New Dawn), the _**Un-named **_still-born__ (that House gave birth to in the woods outside of New Dawn), _**David James, Greg-Michael & John-Daniel **_(the twin Blue-eyes now the "property" of the Interim Government), _and__** James Evan **__(_another Blue)

Children by Chase and House - _**Jordan, Rowan and Callum**_

Child by Danny ("Jesse") Johnson (who was murdered) and House - _**Shamus Drake Johnson-House **_(whom House refuses to call anything but Drake)

Children by Eli (who was shot) and House - _**Reuben**_ and _**Duncan**_

*House also had one child by Josh (the kidnapper/rapist)__whom he named_**Evan**__, (_who died of an untreatable metabolic condition known as Tyrosinemia - though House actually put his baby to death so he would not have to suffer any longer).

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"So I was thinking..."

Wilson looked up from little James who was laying on his lap, happily sucking on a bottle and kicking his feet. House stood in the doorway. "Hey." Wilson said.

It was mid-morning. He knew House had been up earlier with the children, assisting Chase with the feeding and changing, and then had slipped back into bed for a nap. Since losing his twin Blue's, House had not been himself. Better than when the government sponsored confiscation of his babies had occurred, but still not himself. For one thing, his leg now gave him constant discomfort which pain daily drew on his reserves of endurance, teasing at him in the early morning, tripping him up by mid-day, and full fly tackling him by night-fall. Sleep was about the only pain relief House had these days, and no one begrudged him that escape.

House hung by the arched entry into living room. The home they occupied now had been granted to them unanimously by the townsfolk. Once Forman and Chase had made their presence known to the people of Rio Dell, the citizens of the small town had become allies with them in "The Struggle" - the townsfolk's term for the fight against the Interim United States Government that took children away from families, and sullied the meaning of liberty and freedom.

Most of all, the Rio Dell-ians had become their friends and, in some cases, an extended family. Everyone protected everyone else. All decisions that were likely to affect the whole town were voted on democratically in the Town Hall. All children were cherished, and all BM's and their blue-eyed children were especially cherished and closely guarded. Any person who made Rio Dell their home worked together with every other one to protect their BM's and baby Blues - doing so with their lives if necessary.

Still, on very rare occasions, a Blue-eyed child might disappear. The Interim government did not only have its weapons, it had new money and Blue-hunters knew scouting out and abducting Blues and their babies was the highest paid living an ordinary citizen could get, if that citizen happened to be free of scruples. So far it appeared that House and his children would be safe here. Little James would grow up free. Not so for his blue-eyed twins.

"What's up?" Wilson asked House, encouraging him to come all the way in.

House shuffled in with his home-made cane-cum-walking stick and eased himself down onto the couch. "So I was thinking maybe of going to one of these town meetings sometime."

Wilson's heart beat faster, though he was careful to show no change in his expression. House had not wanted to meet any of the towns people. He had for months not even wanted to leave the house for any reason, or take a look around anywhere outside the gates of their enormous ranch-style house. It was well suited to their larger than usual family, and granted a spacious living room, a huge country-style kitchen, six roomy bedrooms and three bathrooms, two of which were in working order - a luxury to be rivaled almost no where else.

It had been a generous gift from the people of Rio Dell. "That'd be great." Wilson said evenly. "Let me know. There's one tomorrow night. Nothing special being discussed. Just regular food and water situation talk as far as I know."

Food and water were topics ever at the forefront of the minds of most. Everyone grew gardens, including attending to a community garden the size of half a football field, where the hardiest type of staple vegetables were grown. There was also a small orchard with apple, orange and wild plum trees, and a huge heavy lattice-work choked with vines that, by summer's end, were covered in dark purple grapes. Everything from the community garden was shared, the portions tracked. A family's home garden they could grow as they liked, though they were tended to carefully as well, every square inch of soil being utilized to maximize production. Still, people shared wares even from these.

House nodded. "Sure."

Wilson was glad. House was coming out of his shell, or his shell-shock, inch by inch. Soon, he might even start enjoying life again. "They've all been asking about you; wanting to meet you."

House said quickly. "I don't want to talk to _any_ of them. I just want to go and..._see_ the place."

Wilson understood. In this hard day and age, for some meeting a room full of new people would be un-nerving. Talking to any of them would be even harder. For House, seeing was just about as much as he could do. He still felt the need to protect himself and for him that meant hiding away and shunning others. Everyone, that is, but his mates and children. Talking to strangers would have to wait for stronger, brighter days.

-

-

Patrick Maine was the unofficial mayor of Rio Dell. The people had voted to _not_ vote in a mayor per-se, because there were only fifty or so citizens living in the entire town, though that did not include children. The exact number of children dwelling among their parents and other adults was never known by anyone. For their own protection, no census was ever taken of the children. That way any questions put to them by any authority outside of their own recognized leadership, could be answered truthfully as "No, sir. I have no idea where any Blues might be."

Any blue-eyed child born was welcomed to the fold, and blessed with gifts, but never actually seen by anyone outside his own family. All children were home-educated and no one citizen knew, among the brown eyed, how many blues any other citizen did or did not have under their roof. It was simply safer for the Blues to live in near anonymity. Where the safety of baby Blues was concerned, ignorance was bliss.

The speaker for the evening was a youngish man of blonde, slightly shaggy hair. Barbers and salons were not a must for survival, and none of the men in the audience sported a particularly stylish coiffure. "There is an extra urgent item on the menu for tonight." Patrick raised a hand to encourage complete attention. "And I would ask that you hold any questions until I'm finished. I would also urge you all to remain calm over what you are about to hear." He coughed and read from a sheet on the podium in front of him. "This was delivered to the town hall secretary by a group that calls itself The Drop Post, a small facility run by the interim Government."

A few mummers erupted and Patrick raised his hand again. "Please,.." he said. "Please?"

He continued. "One of The Communities has implemented a program to facilitate the birth fathers and sires to be granted limited, that's _limited_ access to their Blue-eyed children."

There were stunned faces all around the room and, less than a second later, a collective outrage of gasps and angry words. One large man of Mexican heritage stood and shook his fist. "_They_," He spat rather than spoke the word- ("They", Wilson and his mates had come to understand, was the Interim Government and its subordinate organizations) "-are "granting us limited time"??" He asked, his face puce with fury. "They take children that do not belong to them." He fired out the rest to the audience, turning around in a circle to gather their ears. "They steal them and then they have the balls to tell us that we may,.." Sarcastically, "..._visit_ them according to their generous schedule?"

He looked again at the speaker. "_They_ deserve to burn in hell!"

Patrick agreed of course, but it was a moment for cooler heads and calmer thinking. fortunately, Patrick, despite having been an electrician, had found he was especially good at the art of public speaking and persuasion.

"Carl," Patrick answered, looking at his Mexican neighbor, "is correct. Though we have all been through hell, and we ought to be used to it by now -" The small joke did what it was intended to do - ease tensions. The audience laughed a little. "-I for one do not want to wage a war we cannot win. We all understand how Carl feels about this. We all feel the same way; many of us have lost someone, a BM, a Blue child. We have been robbed of members of our family, our own blood, but we also want to see our children again, don't we?" He waited for any further comments. "_Sooner_ rather than later?"

When he received no further outbursts from the floor - "The Interim Government has been circulating an amendment to their New Constitution of Rights. Now we Californian's, as a Free State, have not signed their Constitution that by its very nature negates the freedoms it so strongly claims to support _but, _until such a time arrives that we can devise a way, or grow strong enough to defeat the barbaric thievery of our little blue-eyed ones, visiting rights may be our only temporary option." He looked around the room. "Unless the few scattered towns left to us can mount an armed assault against the military might of the Government?"

No one answered, or offered an alternative. There wasn't one.

Patrick nodded. "We are but a few dozen here in Rio Dell, and there are maybe a few thousand more anywhere within three hundred miles." Again, no one spoke. "The application process is simple: find your way to The Community - that's their name for their fascist pogrom, not mine - and apply to the Office of Declaration, stating your name -or names if you are a sire group - the name of your BM -" He held up a hand again in assurance, "-who are _not_ required to accompany you unless they wish it, and of course the names of your Blue babies they so callously took from your arms. The applications will be reviewed in the order they are received, and a decision of visitation rights, length, dates, etc will be rendered in due course."

A man near the back called out. "Isn't this sort of like taxes. They take as much as they want and then mail you a dividend?"

Patrick went on to assure the men he was well aware of how insulting the letter was. But he also spoke about perhaps arranging a group to undertake a trip to the government-run facility to apply for all of their children at once. Wilson listened with part of his mind. The others parts were wishing like hell House had not chosen _this_ night to accompany him to the town meeting.

Beside him House, slumped down in his chair trying not to be noticed, and as quiet as a church mouse, was suddenly breathing faster. Wilson could feel the vibration of House's brain chugging to life, his engine revving, the wheels turning, and the inevitable disaster such inner workings usually spawned. House had a predilection for trouble. An_ aptitude_.

Wilson often found himself lamenting House's talent for trouble.

House leaned over. "Due course?" He whispered with venom. "What the hell does due course mean? When they get around to admitting they're sons-of-pricks who ought to be castrated for what they've done?"

"Listen and maybe we'll find out more." Wilson urged.

House shook his head. "Fuck this. Come on, we have to go."

Wilson's heart skipped a beat. "We?? You're not going anywhere, and we all have to make this decision."

"They're _my_ children."

"And _mine_. And you're _my_ BM."

"You don't own me."

"Of course not. It only sounds like ownership - but it may as well be the same and you know it. In the world the way it is, it almost _has_ to be, because you know how dangerous it is for you out there alone."

"Having a half a dozen dicks in my corral didn't make much difference, did it?" House hissed. "Let's go." He whispered fiercely.

Patrick noticed a member of the audience making his way passed many knees toward the exit. "Is that our new member?" He called out, as friendly as you please.

House ignored him.

"Excuse me, would you mind telling us your name? We'd all like to get to know one of our new and welcomed citizens." Patrick wondered which household this one belonged to. Was this the new BM about which he'd been told? The one with the limp? This man was using a cane, so it had to be.

House turned back, but he wasn't much interested in getting to know the saccharine speaker or anyone else. "The name's House."

"House?"

"Yeah. You deaf?"

Patrick smiled patiently. It had also been told to him by the new sire called Eric Foreman that their BM could be somewhat...indelicate in the social graces. "Do you have a first name, Mister House?"

House nodded but didn't offer it nor try to correct the man on the "Mister instead of Doctor" part. He didn't want anyone here to know he was a doctor. He intended to have no social contact with anyone other than his mates and children, so there was no need for them to know anything about him. Besides they already had Foreman, Chase and Wilson to tend to their boring sniffles and sprained ankles.

Patrick tried one final time to be friendly before the new guest left the hall. "Don't you want to stay and listen to the rest of the agenda?"

"Nope."

Patrick knew Doctor James Wilson and his two other physician sire-mates had a BM who was yet _another _doctor, though he had not yet met him. There was no reason for the new men to have lied about their BM (since they had already admitted having one and who would do _that_ if they wanted to keep it a secret?), but until now that BM had refused to meet anyone, or go any place where he might be seen. Until now no one had even heard his name.

The towns people, on the other hand, couldn't have been more delighted to have a passel of healthy children join their small congregation of survivors. And also overjoyed to have scored new citizens who were not only three strong, young sire men but three _doctors_! Patrick also learned that their BM was a little older, though still in relatively good health, other than a previous injury that had left him lame.

He had also been described as "willful", and he could comprehend that no middle-aged BM birthed almost a dozen kids under the circumstances Doctor Forman had described without also being an intractable SOB. But as pertinacious as their BM was supposed to be, he was also terribly gun-shy. Doctor Foreman had explained some of the hardships their Blue, and they, had endured. Some terrible things had happened to the BM, including the loss of several children, and an awful stint in Laurent's great experiment - the failed factory breeding programs the government was finally forced to abandon due to an unknown infection at Laurent's main facility that had resulted in the deaths of all offspring. The entire undertaking had turned out to be a catastrophic failure, and Doctor Foreman had stated that they had escaped with only their lives. So Patrick could easily understand the BM's desire to remain anonymous.

There was BM in the cane-man's eyes, Patrick was sure. The bright lights were reflecting back the now rare and precious color of earth. "Please stay, Mister House - where are you going?"

House looked at him like it was so obvious even an idiot like him ought to know. "I'm going to get my children back. Where do you _think_?"

-

-

"House, you're not going." Wilson left his seat and caught up to him as he was stepping off the sidewalk. The roads of Rio Dell, like many towns and cities, had begun to be week-choked where roots and plant-life had broken up through man's overlay, jig-sawing their carpets of leaves and dirt. Walking in the road was, most times, easier on the feet than on the still intact concrete of the sidewalks, which had yet to be - in the extreme slow motion of time - shaken into rubble.

"Like hell I'm not."

"It's too dangerous for you." Wilson knew House already knew that, but once House had his focus turned on, it usually got cranked to Extreme in a matter of minutes.

"It's not your decision." House didn't look back or slow down for Wilson.

Not that Wilson was having a hard time keeping pace. He fell into step beside him. "We have to vote in it at least."

"Sure. When I give up veto power. I haven't."

"We didn't vote on your "veto power"."

"I'm the birth-dad, it's a given." House turned his head, shooting him a challenge "I'm their father by _body_. The birth wall was and is _mine_. All you did is rent it for a while. I'm the landlord, the children are my -."

"-tenants?"

"_Inheritance_. Means they've been given to _me_."

Wilson, a little pissed off at the implication, "I seem to remember being involved in the giving. If you're the inheritor, that makes me the rich uncle. They're _my_ kids, too."

House didn't reply other than to press his lips together and attempt to quicken his pace. Wilson put a halt to it by stepping in front of House, a dangerous move. House looked about ready to drive his fist into Wilson's face. "Get out of my way." House warned.

"Or you'll _what_? Beat the crap out of me? So you can go home and drive a bus that has three gallons of fuel in it two hundred miles to confront an organization that could squash you like a bug, or better yet lock those blue eyes of yours up in a sterile room and lend your womb out to whomever they please?" Wilson stepped aside. "Be my guest." He walked away, headed for their new home a few streets from the center of town.

House came down from his blindly determined, emotional, irrational high and, after a moment, followed him.

-

-

"How are we going to do this?" Wilson asked his mates.

House had come home, once again stirred up his feelings to rush off and collect his children no matter what obstacles lay in the way. All of the other members of the household knew that was impossible so, despite their own instinctive desire to do the same, had made a collective decision to secretly sedate House, arranging their present clandestine meeting once he had been tucked in bed.

With some guilty feelings over taking House out of the decision-making, Wilson looked at his friends. "We know once House wakes up, he's just going to find a way to take off without us, so we have to come up with a way to get ourselves, or at least one of us, to this Community."

"Well, I want to see our kids again." Chase said, though the twins had been strictly not his, except by step-parenthood. "What they're doing isn't right."

"How are we supposed to get there? Horse-back?"

Wilson shrugged. "If we have to. Look - Patrick suggested a group effort to travel to this "community" and apply individually the same day. That way even if only a few of get in, those few might be able to check on the children of the rest of us, and give us some good news."

"How large a group?" Chase asked.

Wilson shook his head. "I don't know. Pat doesn't even know yet. Five from Rio Dell. Probably a dozen more from the towns within travel distance."

"Won't be many."

"No." Wilson spread his hands. "One way or another, House will figure out some way to get there - we _know_ he will - and confront the people who did this without a hope of getting near the twins or being able to come home after. House knows this, but he's being irrational-"

"-he's being a BM." Chase reminded them. "They were_ his_ kids from _his_ body. Remember when they tried to amputate his leg? Look how that turned out. Small wonder House is even more nuts about this, and more crazy in general than he used to be." Chase added. "He's House on hormones now."

They shared a small few seconds of the irony and humor behind it. Foreman said. "Yeah, _how_ are we surviving him again?"

Wilson smiled, too, but "We love him, that's how." then added, "But we know House _can't _come." The unspoken idea was that somehow House would have to be restrained, or kept drugged (not likely since they could be gone for weeks), until the small convoy left for places Unknown. Almost unknown. Thus far they had heard of this "Community", one of them anyway, being situated in Iowa. So they would go there first, and hope the government wasn't lying.

Foreman sighed. He was weary of travel, his shoulders heavy with the guilt that much of what was happening was because of his decisions; his insistence that they had needed to move. It had sounded so reasonable at the time. So necessary.

Wilson and Chase, even House, had tried to shift that weight, but so far Foreman had refused to relinquish the responsibility he saw as his alone. "Okay. Let's talk to Patrick, and get this show on the road."

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	7. Chapter 7

FATHERLAND

Part VII

**(Sequel to Remember Zion)**

By GeeLady

Time-line: Post final season. **Alternate Universe**/Future events

Summary: _"Suffer the children to come unto me. . .for such is the kingdom of heaven."_

Pairing: House/Wilson/Foreman/Chase/Others

Rating: NC-17 **SLASH** ADULT. **M-PREG!!** Angst. (You have been warned).

Disclaimer: The blue-eyed babe with the cane - _**sigh!**_ - is not mine.

**As by reader request, here is a short family tree for the House family in FATHERLAND:**

Children By Foreman and House - _**Reid**__ and __**Gordon**_

Children by Wilson and House - _**Lee**_ (who was murdered by the town's people of East New Dawn), the _**Un-named **_still-born__ (that House gave birth to in the woods outside of New Dawn), _**David James, Greg-Michael & John-Daniel **_(the twin Blue-eyes now the "property" of the Interim Government), _and__** James Evan **__(_another Blue)

Children by Chase and House - _**Jordan, Rowan and Callum**_

Child by Danny ("Jesse") Johnson (who was murdered) and House - _**Shamus Drake Johnson-House **_(whom House refuses to call anything but Drake)

Children by Eli (who was shot) and House - _**Reuben**_ and _**Duncan**_

*House also had one child by Josh (the kidnapper/rapist)__whom he named_**Evan**__, (_who died of an untreatable metabolic condition known as Tyrosinemia - though House actually put his baby to death so he would not have to suffer any longer).

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"Think Chase and House'll be okay?" Wilson asked, anxious about spending that much time away from House and not only for his own physical addiction to the BM, but for House's safety. He had not been himself since the twins had been taken.

Foreman watched the earth roll slowly by from a hard rear seat of one of five buggies. Theirs was third in line from the front. Each carried a man armed with a rifle, hand gun or other weapon. So far the trip had been uneventful. One buggy carried only provisions, tents, blankets, and the things families might once have used for a lengthy camping trip to Yellowstone, but which were now implements of survival. "It's only two weeks. Besides, Patrick appointed a guardian to watch over them both and to help with the kids if they ask."

"We both know House will never agree to a stranger coming anywhere near his children."

"Eli had been a stranger."

Wilson still didn't think an unknown spending any time with House or anywhere near his children was a good idea. "I hope you're right."

"Chase is there. No one's going to lay a hand on House, if that's what you're worried about."

Of course that was part of what was fretting his mind. Another intruder talking his way into House's pants. Or, worse, a foreign seed hormonally hypnotizing its way into House's womb wall. Wilson didn't think he could stand yet another portion of his time and affections being divvied out to a new-comer. The thought of House pregnant with anyone's baby besides his own was quickly becoming an intolerable agony, a state of heart he had not yet shared with his sire mates.

But then House had insisted he was not going to have any more babies. He had in fact spurned all of their sexual advances since the night of the cabin, the trauma of Evan's birth and the tragedy of Eli's murder. Wilson was certain House's feelings on the matter were temporary, however. He would soon begin to crave the affections of his mates again, and all would return to normal. Almost all. Cocks House might again allow sweet passage, but with pregnancies House had been adamant - never again.

-

-

Patrick had appointed Brad Bedricky to over-see the safety of Chase, his BM and their offspring.

Brad was a loyal Rio Dell-ian and had worked alongside Patrick for almost five years, almost since the bitter end of Outbreak. Brad, like most, had lost his parents, his sister and one of two brothers to the virus. The other brother had lost his blue-eyed children to the government and had hung himself.

So Brad figured he'd get a warm welcome into the household of the House children, and had extended his hand in greeting when Patrick and brought him to the door of Rio Dell's newest family. The younger man, Robert Chase, hazel-eyed sire, had shaken his hand congenially. The older, limping BM?

Not so much. The breeder with the beautifully bright blue but fierce eyes had taken one look at him and warned him off with a raised cane. Those eyes had instantly filled with distrust and anger. With hate, even. "Chase may want you here but I don't." The blue-eyed fury had warned. "Don't touch me. Don't even come _near _me. And don't come near my children - _ever." _

Brad had obediently backed off, and Chase had then escorted him to his temporary bedroom, with apologies. "Sorry about that. He's been through a lot."

"I get that."

Chase felt sorry for him. Brad, a slim brown eyed brunette of around thirty-ish, seemed a decent fellow. He was only there to help. Chase left to check on House and the kids, then returned with two glasses of cool, filtered well water. "Hungry?" He asked after handing Brad his glass.

Brad shook his head. "Maybe I ought to go? I mean he obviously doesn't want me here and I don't want to cause any grief."

Chase sat down on one of the bedroom's two stuffed chairs, putting his feet up on the bed. Brad was perched on the edge of the mattress, staring into his glass.

"I need you here. Don't worry about House. Like I said, he's been through a lot."

Brad nodded. "I heard he lost twins."

Chase nodded, his own throat closing over when-ever he thought of them. Maybe Foreman and Wilson will bring them home. "Yeah. And a lot more. He spent some time in one of the old breeding facilities before they were shut down. He had a stillborn.." Chase decided not to go into many details other than the bare facts, "lost another to illness. With the twins gone, five children in all now."

Brad was stunned. No wonder the old guy was a mess. "Poor bugger."

Chase didn't want to skew Brad's opinion of House. "But House is okay, you know. Once you get passed the hurt, he can surprise you." In many ways, Chase remembered fondly. Sexually House was surprising as hell. Tender, passionate, wanting you as much as you wanted him, and making sure you knew it through and through. Chase grew warm with the memories of House beneath him, panting and moaning and rocking in time as he pounded his hard cock deep inside him over and over. Things he was beginning to miss terribly. "And he tries to be fair but right now he's just...scared."

Brad nodded. He could understand that. So he probably wasn't going to be welcomed into the BM's bedroom anytime soon. Not that he had expected that at all, but a fresh BM lay was always...a very nice treat, if you could get it. This fellow Chase was a good looking man. And good company. Brad suspected, despite the BM's thick hatred of his presence, that he might be able to enjoy this assignment. Just maybe.

-

-

Five days by horse and buggy brought Wilson, Foreman and seventeen other sires from in and around Rio Dell to The Community.

Wilson had expected prison walls, razor wire and guards. Guns. Dogs. But what was before them, according to the signs placed strategically at the side of the weed spotted highway, was average small town America. It had the look of a spruce-up, with new paint, saplings planted in rows, and freshly sewn flags waving in the slight breeze.

Yes there were guards, but they each sat in tiny one room office-cabins on either side of the main street. Their service windows were the first thing anyone saw upon arrival. Yes, there were guards, but they patrolled the streets in plain clothing with weapons concealed.

There was a supermarket with basic, and a few luxury, foods. There was even two coffee shops. No pubs to be seen anywhere.

Wilson and his companions were made note of and met by two of the guards. Questions and answers were exchanged and the shortest man guided them up three streets and six over Eastward to the Office of Declaration.

Here, Wilson thought, we'll find the bars and fences. But, no, there was only another larger cabin with a sign erected above it "Office of Declaration".

Where was the, Wilson assumed, large facility where the stolen children were being handed off to strangers. There for certain would be guns and rules and walls to keep people - to keep the birth parents - out.

No large building with the hallmarks of a factory or assembly line was to be seen anywhere within sight.

The Office of Declaration was open for business. The caravan of bereft fathers pulled to a halt in single file before the simple wooden doors of their first foray into The Community, and whatever it had waiting for them in the way of red tape.

Foreman was chosen as the first spokesman for their group. A pleasant looking fellow sat behind a metal desk. He had many filing cabinets lined against the wall behind him. there was no guard, no mesh screen, no bullet-proof glass. The be-spectacled middle aged clerk with the bad comb-over looked up from his small lap-top computer (electricity and electronics were alive and well in The Community), and greeted him. "Good afternoon. First time?"

Foreman thought it a ludicrous question. "You mean you people have stolen more than once from the same family?"

"I mean is this your first time filling out a Declaration?"

Foreman decided antagonizing the man wouldn't help them with their claim. "Yes."

The clerk nodded and handed him a lengthy form to complete, wishing him a pleasant day.

Foreman just stared at the paper in his hand like it was infected or something. Three pages, both sides, filled with questions and plenty of blank spaces to write down the answers. It would be comical if it wasn't so insane. The horrendously tiring trip, all their pain, worry and trembling hope - was this really all there was to it? "You mean I just fill out this form and I get my kids back?"

"Of course not. Your claim will be reviewed as to its validity. If everything checks out, a decision will be made as to future visiting rights. Standard procedure."

Foreman wanted to both throttle the guy and cry with relief. Somehow he had envisioned fighting or pleading his way into a prison refurbished as an orphanage, only to find himself trapped along with the rest of their caravan. Not this starched, pressed bubble of eerie calm sitting serenely as it pleased at the center of a world in chaos.

"What if the answer is no? Aren't you worried people might just storm in and take them back? You have no military here, and I haven't seen more than three guards so far, and they look like mall cops."

The man with his many important forms smiled back, a man in the know. "There are tens of thousands of families in this town, your children probably among them. How will you find them? Do you plan on knocking down every door? Terrorizing the children? You have no idea with whom your children have been placed and, for their safety, neither do I." He held up a blank form. ":This form that you fill out? It's sent to another center fifty miles from here. They don't know where your children are either. They send it on to the government office in Washington DC, who make the decisions. They examine each claim to parenthood, decide who may or may not see their little ones, and then send that message back to us, with the address and name of the appropriate family."

Foreman began to understand. No military needed when the children were scattered; hidden among a crowd of thousands with no way of knowing with who they resided or where that residence might be.

"There are several more Communities just like this one, all within two days travel of one another. Nice towns just like this one where the children can grow up and be mated with other blue-eyes."

"How long does the government expect us brown eyes to sit at the back of the bus?"

"This has nothing to do with bigotry. A brown-eye only produces about one blue eye in ten births from a BM. Here, some day, if we allow only Blues to mate with Blues, that number will be ten out of ten. This is about survival of the human race. Once some more promising numbers are reached in regards to blue eyed births, then the law will be relaxed to again allow open mating."

A rote oratory regarding a very neat, closed scenario. It sounded scientific and even reasonable, just like Laurent's great failure.

The clerk was not without sympathy. "Everyone wants to keep their Blue's. Blue's are special. They're precious. But we have to think of the big picture, myself included."

"You lost a blue eyed baby?"

"My BM did. I work for the day I can see my child again."

"Where's your BM?"

"He didn't agree with me that it was best. The babies are getting inoculations, the best food, the best care. Most sires and their breeder end up half starved - some of them die out there."

"Lots of them live, too." Foreman said quickly. "So you gave up your _own_ child?" It was incredible to Foreman how anyone could make such a decision.

"I _believe_ in this program." Clearly his BM had not. The clerk bent his head over his desk once more, the conversation at an end. "Just fill out your form, sir. You'll have your answer in a few weeks."

"How will I _get_ that answer?"

"It will be sent via courier to your residence, where-ever that is."

Foreman, in a daze, exited the small cabin with a newly sharpened pencil provided by the clerk.

Wilson and everyone were anxious to know what had transpired, but for now Foreman ignored all questions but one - "When do we see our kids?" Wilson asked.

Foreman shook his head at the unreality of it all. "I have no idea."

-

-

Brad resisted the idea of Chase for a few days, but one night he stole one impulsive kiss and that was all the prompt the younger man needed to begin dragging him into a bedroom, shutting the door and pulling at his clothes.

Soon they stood face to face, naked and aroused. Chase had not had this for many, many weeks. Not from House (who had made himself off-limits), not from Wilson (who was in a constant flux of worry over House), and not from Foreman who was busy from can't see to can't see with helping withe the children and chores and assisting Patrick with the administration of the towns needs.

House was busy with the children in the sunroom, taking advantage of a cloudless day. They had time and privacy, and Chase was starving.

He swallowed Brad's tongue, tasting the sweet wet mouth, aching to feel the new man's cock up against his own. In fact both their penises were jockeying for position between their pressed together abdomens. It felt heinous, messy and forbidden.

All would have progressed from there to the bed and more wonders had the door not swung silently open - Chase would not have noticed anything altered in the room if he had not felt the slight breeze from the hallway. He pulled his lips away from Brad's mouth enough to turn his head to see what had jarred the door open.

House stood there in the hallway, looking in. He had seen the whole show, or at least the crucial scenes. His face twisted with what Chase could only describe as pierced, as though a spear had just plunged into his midsection, then he turned and crimped back down the stairs.

"Oh shit." Chase whispered.

Brad was wondering what all the fuss was about. "What? Are you and he _married _or something?"

Though he could still feel the deep ache in his loins, Chase just shook his head, quickly pulled his jeans back up over his softening penis and left the room to catch up to House.

Brad sat down on the bed to wait out whatever it was that had spooked the both of them. He lit a contraband cigarette. Sometimes BM's were more trouble than they were worth.

"House! Slow down." There was no need to ask. House simply returned to the sunroom where his many children played with blocks and other toys or where the younger ones lay contented or fussing in their cribs.

"Are you upset?"

Stupid question. Of course he was, even though he didn't _look_ like he was. But for a second there, he had. "Look, it was just going to be a quickie - I'm not in love with the guy, it's just been so long...I needed - "

"- I get it. 'Nuff said."

Chase didn't believe him. "You're lying. You are upset and I'm sorry." To try and save face. "Look, _you've_ slept with other men besides us three."

House asked calmly - "Name one you didn't bring _to_ me, or that I used just to _survive_?"

Of course there was none. Or rather, there was Danny, (whom they had welcomed into the fold and pushed on House), and Eli (whom House had turned to in a place and time of terrible desperation).

Chase didn't know what to say again "I'm sor-"

"- you're a bastard."

Chase felt the sting. "I love you, but you've been distant and cold, and I just couldn't take it anymore. This family isn't just about _you_ and what you need. It's about _all _of us and we have needs, too."

House lifted his nose toward the stairs. "Your "need" is waiting."

You couldn't win with House. "You're a control freak, House. You make every decision when it comes to the children, you withhold affection when it suits you, and you fuck when it suits you. And for the last few months you've been in a with-holding pattern." Chase stood, not caring how House felt at the moment. "But, I'll tell you what. No matter how starved I feel for some affection, I'm not going to sleep with the new guy. I'm going to keep my pants zipped. Let me know when it's okay for me to feel like I'm loved again. Like I'm worth more than to be ignored."

Chase stomped away, not giving House time to come up with a clever retort.

In a few minutes, Brad came down the stairs, fully dressed, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. He strolled into the dayroom, idly looking at the kids and watching House.

"No smoking in here." Was all House said to him.

Brad raised a window and tossed it out. "You're a fucking idiot."

House ignored him, working on repairing one of the children's toy cars. A wheel had broken off.

Brad wasn't going to say a lot, just enough to knock some sense into the imbedded streak of cranky that this BM insisted on forever carrying around with him like a war wound. "You've got three young, strong sires who are crazy about you. You're a BM," He shrugged, "so I suppose that makes sense. It always makes sense since almost no sire can resist a BM, even one as miserable and ungrateful as you. You've got kids and a family. You're living in a free town filled with other people who'll die to protect you and that new little blue-eyed baby there. And all you can do is complain and show them every day what a son-of-a-bitch you are, and how everything they do for you isn't good enough."

Brad wasn't going to stay any longer than was necessary. "So you've lost things, and suffered. So has everyone, asshole. But I'm still willing to help out you and Robert for as long as necessary. For _him_," he emphasized, "and for those gorgeous kids of yours. Because they need and deserve the help. But they're not going to get that help unless you ask me for it. _You_ are going to have to ask me to stay. You are going to have to ask me very _nicely_."

Brad strolled out of the room. "Play out this sad misery routine to its bitter end, and it's only going to convince them you're not worth it. It's going to get them _gone_."

-

-

As though nothing had occurred and no words had been exchanged between them, Chase entered the sunroom shortly after Brad left. He picked up one of the fussing babies and began to bounce him on his knee. "Brad leave?" He asked.

House nodded, not looking at him.

"I'm assuming he isn't coming back."

House shook his head. "Not unless I ask him to." House looked over at him now. "My "punishment"."

Chase let baby Callum tug at his shirt. "Well, we need him back." He said. He looked tired. Sad. "Unless you think we can handle ten children on our own until Foreman and Wilson get back?"

Of course if they had to, it could be done, but not easily. Better to have two hands with the kids and a third man doing most of the other work like laundry, cooking and cleaning - a full time job when there was enough people to make a baseball team all living under one roof.

House let Evan cry for a few minutes before picking him up. Best to let him learn early that just because you cry, it doesn't necessarily get you what you want, at least not right away. "I don't want to lose what I have left." House said quietly.

Chase looked at him thoughtfully. Okay, that was at least a partial explanation for his over-reaction. "Think I do?"

House wasn't paying attention to anything but the baby in his arms. Then he finally looked up to meet Chase's eyes. He had to agree. "No."

"If you cut yourself off from us, then we can't stay close to you either, no matter how much we might want to." Chase was sorry he had made such an impulsive move as to try sleeping with Brad. It had been a moment of human weakness. "I'm just a person, House, and I miss...being with you." He added sadly, "And I miss you _wanting_ to be with us. It hurts."

House had thought if he cut himself off physically, reduce the risk of caring for any of them just in case they disappeared, too, he could dull the pain of losing John and Greg, his twin babies. He could protect himself from more pain and more loss. For a while, it had worked. But the back-pressure had built and built and he was ready to explode and fall apart all at once, like a demolished building. A million tiny charges all igniting at the same time, each taking out its small square of a man.

"I can't lose anyone else." House said, trying to explain. It was hard, not only because it was emotional which always made him uncomfortable, but because the emotion was so huge and cumbersome, he was having a hard time balancing it or even seeing around it to the other side - to hope. He confessed "I don't think I'll make it if that happens."

Chase could understand something of what House was going through, but he wasn't going to let him off that easily. "Almost everything that you've lost, we've lost too."

House looked at him intensely. He was processing it, trying to comes to terms with the idea that maybe his mates were in as rough a shape as he was. Maybe they hadn't somehow risen above the pain. Maybe it was weighing them down just as heavily as it was him, but - "I'm...I-..."

It was clear House was trying to articulate something. "What?"

House leaned forward in his own lap, pressing tiny Evan to his face. His shoulders began to shudder and shake. He was holding on, Chase realized, to everything by a thread, and he was holding Evan tightly, burying his face in his tiny child's tee-shirt because he couldn't do so to the ones who had been taken from him. House was clinging to hope like his mates were but, unlike them, just barely.

Chase came and sat down beside him. It was always a crap shoot whether to comfort House or just let him work through a thing by himself. The comfort could be accepted or rejected and it was usually impossible to tell which was needed or wanted at the time.

Chase decided to risk one hand on House's back. It wasn't rejected. "We understand, House. We get it. Don't think for one minute we don't." He lay his head down against House's thin back. "Jesus," He swore, "I can feel your ribs." He lifted up the tee-shirt to reveal a neat row of flat bones on the left side of House's rib-cage.

"What the _hell_?" Chase ran his fingers over the bony ridges. He could play a tune on them. "I know you haven't had an appetite lately but - _Christ_ - I had no idea..."

House was drained of strength, but his crying jag was over as quickly as it had begun.

Chase stood up, intending to give House the privacy he needed to collect himself once more, to make like the crying hadn't occurred and that no one had witnessed it at all. "I'm going to go put something on the fire." He announced. "And then you're going to eat it." Then he leaned down and took House's chin in one hand - screw House's need to hide his emotions away. For just a moment, _he _had needs, too. Chase bent over and kissed House on the lips. He took his time, deepening the contact. Enjoying it. It had been too long. House didn't try to pull away.

When Chase was finished he released House's jaw and said "Then you're going to ask Brad to come back, so someone can watch the kids tonight. Because tonight you're coming to my bed."

House looked up at him dully, he was almost empty, but he didn't argue. Chase would put something back in those eyes tonight. By tomorrow, something good would dwell in them again.

-

-

"We can't go home with _this_." Wilson held up their copy of the forms he and Foreman had taken some minutes filling out in as much detail as possible. "We can't bring back to House nothing more than the government's assurance that "our case will be reviewed". Wilson felt like the whole trip had been a waste. "If we're going to do that, we may as well not go home at all."

"There's nothing else." Foreman said reasonably. He hated to return with nothing but vague promises but what else was there? "We can't stay here." He swept his eyes over the main street of the little town. "What do you want to do? Spend months trying to interview every person in town to see if they'll let slip that they've got our kids?" He mimicked such an interview. "Excuse me, sir, but are you illegally holding stolen twin blue-eyes? Because we'd like them back now."

Wilson frowned at Foreman's ill-timed humor, though he was correct. It would be impossible of course. Wilson felt terribly depressed. Let down. Almost hopeless. And if _he_ felt this awful, how was House going to react? However he did, it would not be good.

Foreman made the decision for them, since he saw in Wilson's face that need to have someone else make it for him. Because he was too helpless in his grief to choose. "The caravan leaves for home tomorrow morning." Foreman stated simply. "And we're going to be on it."

-

-

House had asked Brad if he would come back and help them, once Chase fetched the man to return and hear it. House still never left their own property, and nothing would budge him on that.

Brad took the kids in hand, and Chase took House in his.

"Mmmm," Chase couldn't help but make the noises; they came out of their own accord. "Ah- fuck that's good." He panted into House's ear as his cock got squeezed again and again in the molten depths of House's tight ass.

House responded to Chase's every move with one of his own, and he knew Chase was getting close. It did feel so good to have someone inside him again, pounding his animal brain to pulp, thrusting like the world was going to end the very next hour, grinding and chattering dirty things in his ear. It felt good to be needed and have that need slaked in his own sex, and his slaked in theirs. Chase was still young and viral, pouring every ounce of his energy into making it last as long as possible and building the come like an architect - from scratch. Everything physical between them felt raw again. New and unknown - a secret, wanton exploration of stranger on stranger.

"Ugnn." House couldn't help making noises either and could feel his own peak rapidly approaching as Chase obligingly pumped his cock with his saliva slicked fist. Sexually, BM's had it good, House had to admit. He always got it from both sides. The result was mind-blowing.

Suddenly Chase stopped and began to pull out.

House almost yelled in his panic. "Why are you stopping!?" He wrapped his legs around Chase's back and held him there, pushing his hard member back in, keeping it prisoner.

Chase stared at his face in the dark. "Well, I need a condom. We have some in the dresser."

Yes, they should, but House didn't want this unbelievably delicious moment interrupted. "Forget the damn condom."

Chase did not resume his motions, other than to thrust once or twice to keep the momentum going and keep himself harder than iron. "-Ah!" He blurted when House squeezed his cock as hard as he could. "Oh, fuck, House, oh baby that feels amazing." He took a deep breath as House squeezed again, teasing him, making his crazy. "B-but the condom, you - _ah-fuck!_ - y-you could get pregnant."

House replied by squeezing even harder, tightening his cavern until Chase shuddered out a long, low groan. "O-o-o-o-o-o, you dirty little BM slut." Chase withdrew and slammed himself home again. Fuck the condom then. If House wanted to risk it, he would fuck him and fill him until he was sure House was knocked up. In fact, the very idea fired him to bang the willing BM even harder.

Chase raised himself on his elbows, giving his hips greater freedom to move and grind his cock in circles. He could feel the imminent explosion, and was anxious to make it a spectacular one. "Okay, you tasty tight-ass, I'm going to fuck you up so good." He growled in House's ear. "Your belly's going to be round and tight before you know it. You hear me? I'm going to get you so _fucking_ pregnant!"

Just the vision of making House pregnant again was enough to dive him nearly mad, and Chase pumped like crazy, finally feeling the burst of sensations and release - destructive and creative, hot and cold, pure and dirty, and all ageless great things that fell between.

House moaned when he came, biting his lip to keep it a secret, shooting his own useless cum over Chase's hand and his own abdomen.

Finally the sweet sexual ache faded, leaving behind that amazing after-twitch of physical satiation. Chase rolled off. "Oh my god, that was incredible." He caught his breath for a moment, then raised himself up on one elbow to look down at House.

House had already lowered his legs back down, with some assistance for his right one, to a more comfortable position. He was soaked with his own sweat and Chase's as well. House glanced over at Chase's smoothly muscled chest, feeling a pang of regret that it was already over. Well, there was always tomorrow night.

Now that his own desire had been fed, House felt the tiny panic of foolishness. No condom meant a possible pregnancy, and with Chase it was almost a certainty since in the past they had never had a miss, not like Foreman or Wilson. Motility made all the difference. Chase was younger, fitter and his tiny rotaries probably far more desperate in all their youthful horniness to make it to home base.

By the next morning, House knew he was pregnant. Chase didn't even have to ask, just the look on House's morning face - pinched with a mixture of anger and worry - was all Chase needed to figure it out. "Hah!" He smile widely. "I _knew_ it." Chase grabbed House from the front, pushing him against the kitchen counter and pressing his pelvis against. "Mmmm," Chase nibbled at his lips and then his neck. "Just the thought of that belly swelling up for me...I could so fuck you right now."

House felt the panic of being an expectant father again. But he also felt the tiny ball of excitement that had come with each and every pregnancy. With the sole exception of carrying Josh's offspring, a sweet sensation of joy, even the tiniest one, accompanied being pregnant, especially by someone he loved. (With Josh's he had felt nothing but fear the entire three weeks).

Chase was leaning into him now, and House could feel the hardness of his young cock against his thigh.

Nothing like a pregnancy to draw the wood out of the cock-work.

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Part VIII asap


	8. Chapter 8

FATHERLAND

Part VIII

**(Sequel to Remember Zion)**

By GeeLady

Time-line: Post final season. **Alternate Universe**/Future events

Summary: _"Suffer the children to come unto me. . .for such is the kingdom of heaven."_

Pairing: House/Wilson/Foreman/Chase/Others

Rating: NC-17 **SLASH** ADULT. **M-PREG!!** Angst. (You have been warned).

Disclaimer: The blue-eyed babe with the cane - _**sigh!**_ - is not mine.

**As by reader request, here is a short family tree for the House family in FATHERLAND:**

Children By Foreman and House - _**Reid**__ and __**Gordon**_

Children by Wilson and House - _**Lee**_ (who was murdered by the town's people of East New Dawn), the _**Un-named **_still-born__ (that House gave birth to in the woods outside of New Dawn), _**David James, Greg-Michael & John-Daniel **_(the twin Blue-eyes now the "property" of the Interim Government), _and__** James Evan **__(_another Blue)

Children by Chase and House - _**Jordan, Rowan and Callum**_

Child by Danny ("Jesse") Johnson (who was murdered) and House - _**Shamus Drake Johnson-House **_(whom House refuses to call anything but Drake)

Children by Eli (who was shot) and House - _**Reuben**_ and _**Duncan**_

*House also had one child by Josh (the kidnapper/rapist)__whom he named_**Evan**__, (_who died of an untreatable metabolic condition known as Tyrosinemia - though House actually put his baby to death so he would not have to suffer any longer).

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To get away from Chase's groping hands and Brad's cool exterior, House began to take daily walks around the neighborhood. Wilson and Foreman had been gone two and a half weeks, he was nearly two weeks along in his pregnancy and could already feel the extra weight around his lower abdomen. It wasn't uncomfortable, not yet. But soon his final week would arrive where his stomach would become very tender and hot to the touch. When he felt he needed to take extra care not to jostle himself or let anyone near him even with mittened hands.

House sat down on a park bench, the park really only a pathetic square of grass, two or three spruce trees and the bench on which he rested his delicate stomach and leg. House absentmindedly rubbed his left hand over the small, oblong swelling that began just below his navel and ended just at the line of his groin. In another two or three days, he wouldn't be able to zip his jeans up anymore.

He was almost glad Wilson wasn't here. His long-time mate always found the final week of a pregnancy ripe time for teasing him about being "too fat to do up his pants" and, the even more irritating, was always touching him, feeling for kicks or other signs of life that proved his new son was going to be a fantastic athlete and all around star.

House looked around to ensure he was alone in the park and that no one was walking anywhere nearby, then unzipped his winter jacket, lifted his tee-shirt a little, and unzipped his jeans enough to expose the skin above his groin. He carefully ran a finger across the low, horizontal line of his lower womb wall. His unborn son was a strapping one for certain. With the exception of the twins, he was larger than he had ever been with any of his other pregnancies.

And he was especially nervous with this one. He had been adamant about having no more babies, but due to some sex-driven recklessness on his part, here he was - pregnant yet again. Wilson would be upset. Would he be angry, though? Devastated? House hoped not. As emotionally vibrant as a pregnancy often made him feel, he was scared, too. At fifty-five years of age, he had no idea whether pregnancies got riskier with age as they had with women. Indirectly perhaps but inherently?

House also had no idea why he had lost so much weight. He had been eating - not a lot, but enough he thought. Of course, the stress of the last few months had taken its toll. Even he could feel how emotionally and mentally shaky he was. Another baby was a stupid idea, but he could nothing about it now but go through yet another agonizing labor. Feeling like a teenage idiot, House zipped back up, cursing all hormones.

A few steps into his walk home, a small spasm suddenly shot through his abdomen from left to right. His heart sped up and for a few seconds, he felt breathless.

House paused, taking a few deep breaths as the spasm passed. He wasn't too concerned. He had felt pre-labor pain once or twice before during previous pregnancies, though this had been particularly sharp. House resumed his pace, though more slowly, making it home without further discomfort.

Chase heard the front door open and close, and called. "How was your walk?"

House passed by the kitchen, not even sneaking a peek into the sun room where Brad sat, keeping an eye on the children. Chase, hands busy and apron stained with juice, was preparing formula, vegetables and fruit for the children's dinners. "Hungry?" He asked House as he passed by. Then muttered to himself. "Don't care if you are or not - you're eating."

House entered the largest main floor bathroom, one with a working toilet, though its use was still restricted to daylight hours, and then only between nine and six PM, when there was a monitor at the restored water-treatment plant. Only about a third of the town had running water at all, the rest of the Rio Dell sitting largely vacant.

House sat on the toilet lid and searched his body for further signs of labor pain or anything else unusual, finding none. There was rapid tappity-tap on the door. "House. Dinner. Come on."

Chase would not leave him alone until he obediently sat down and ate. It's not that he wasn't hungry, it's just food hadn't been settling well in his stomach the last few weeks, and when he did eat, he was often hit with several hours of watery diarrhea, a fact he did not at this point care to share. Chase would haul him off to the local hospital and a freak-show of worry and probing fingers would ensue. House was a doctor himself and knew what to look for and what to keep an eye on when it came to his own health. He'd been pregnant enough to know that, though he was thinner than he should be, presently he wasn't in any danger.

Besides Wilson and Foreman would be home in another day and that would give him more time from the children so he could see to the treatment of his own bowel function privately. Every dick in the household already had intimate knowledge of him from his ass to his tea-kettle, and this problem was one he'd like to treat without a frantic sire's interfering hands.

"House." Chase knocked again, this time more insistently.

"Yeah." House tried not to sound in every way annoyed. "Keep your skirt on - I'm _coming_."

-

-

House just made it to the toilet before he felt the explosion approach from his back end. It was the middle of the night and he'd had to scramble as quietly but as quickly as possible from the bed, hoping he wouldn't wake up Chase. If Chase got wind of his current bowel dysfunction, he'd be mauled with worry for days.

House closed the door, dropped his pajama's and let it rip. This time it was accompanied by pain as his bowels twisted and writhed in their desperation to rid themselves of the offensive dinner.

Dinner hadn't in fact been offensive at all. Chase was becoming a right little cook and the stir-fried vegetables had been tender and delicious, while the grouse had literally melted off the bones.

None of that seemed to matter to his digestive track, though, as another wave of pain swept through his descending and sigmoid colons, depositing liters of foulness into his rectum before forcing a rapid exit. House bent over his lap, sweating profusely, willing the pain to ease.

Finally, it did. He cleaned himself up, washed his hands and face and opened the door to return to bed. Standing right there in the hall was Brad, their house guest nanny. Brad gave him a look like he knew House was up to something but not like he knew what.

House closed the door behind him, hoping to block the odoriferous sign of loose bowels. But Brad had already picked it up. "Upset stomach?"

House nodded, hoping that was the end of their midnight discussion.

But no. "You've been racking up the miles going from the bedroom to the bathroom lately. Everything okay?"

Trying to shut it down right there - "If there was, do you think I'd tell you?"

Brad was tired of the resentful game. "Look, I'm not trying to interfere. If you're sick, don't you think you ought to tell someone?"

"I did. I told _myself_, and since I'm a doctor, I even know how to diagnose and treat it. And since this is a matter of patient-doctor confidentiality..." House tried to push passed him, but Brad was having none of it.

The young sire crossed his arms, deciding to make a stand right there in the midnight hallway. "I'm not an enemy, you know. I can keep a secret as well as anyone. Do you really know what's wrong, or are you just trying to keep it from Chase?"

"That's my business."

"Unless you spill what's going on here, I'm going to make it Chase's business."

House stared at the sire with extreme prejudice. "I'm having a few bowel issues, it's nothing to worry about."

"I've seen your back. You're turning into Skeleton. Even an idiot can see this is serious."

"Well, then you should know."

"How about a compromise?"

"You have nothing I want."

"I have Chase's ignorance in my back pocket."

House glared daggers. "Fine. What's your deal?"

"Tomorrow you come with me to a man I know - he's an ob-gyn - and let him examine you to make sure everything's okay. If he says everything's fine, I'll keep my mouth shut."

"And it he doesn't - though he will - but if he doesn't?"

"Then you follow his medical advice. I'm not saying you won't, but _if_ you won't, again I tell Chase."

House bit his lip, lifting his nose at him. "You're a jerk."

"Whatever. So? Should I go and wake up Chase or not?"

House pushed passed him. "_Not_. We'll go see your idiot ob - that's a _female_ obstetrics doctor. In case you didn't get the memo, as a man my plumbing's a little different. Plus it's my basement plumbing that's the problem, moron, not the sink in the nursery."

Brad ignored the insult. "Green will want to cover every angle. When the kids are down for their afternoon nap, we'll go."

House nodded, intensely annoyed by the man's nosiness. "Yeah, have a good sleep. Hell, sleep all day if you want."

-

-

House stared at his consulting physician. Doctor Green looked about a thousand years old and wore very thick, wire-framed spectacles that he balanced on the end of his nose. "I worked in San-Francisco at St Mary's Hospital for many years. Delivered a lot of babies there." Old Doc' Green offered once handshakes were done with and set aside.

House wanted to say _Hail Mary_ but decided against it. Instead he did like Brad had bribed, stepping into the small living room, his extortioner trailing behind him.

The very old obstetrician had a table set up against one wall, complete with paper (though this was newspaper), and stirrups. It would be a cold, cold day in hell before House was going to slip his feet into _those_.

Brad made himself comfortable on the couch to quietly observe while Green and House got to know one another. "Nether works are a little different here, Doc'." House began by pointing out the obvious. "For one thing, no vagina, and you are _not_ going to stick your fist up my man-tunnel as long as I'm alive."

Green ignored him, slipping on a worn doctor's coat. the collar was yellowed with age. "Lie down on the table, please," Green said in his gravely old man's voice. "And lift your shirt."

House did as he was told. Brad had stood and wandered a bit closer so he could see what was going on.

"Lose the jeans, too." Green said.

House frowned at the doctor and glared fiery coals at Brad for making him come here in the first place. "It's my _bowels_ that are bothering me, not the baby."

Green didn't frazzle easily. "Fine, fine. We'll just make certain."

House unzipped his jeans and slid them down to his thighs so Doctor Green could examine his belly.

Brad tried not to be obvious about hiding his hard-on, but the sight of the softy distended belly sprinkled with sparse, light-brown hair was very attractive. He crossed his legs, trying to get a mental grip on his inflamed libido. His pants were feeling a less and less comfortable as the minutes went by while doctor Green ran his fingers back and forth over the golden skin. The room was suddenly very warm.

Damn hypnotic BM hormones. Brad knew that if it were any other sharp-tongued, cranky, crippled fifty-five year old with five days growth on his face lying there with his belly exposed, he wouldn't have taken a second look. Probably not a first one.

But pink flushed, silky BM underbelly's swollen tight with the hard work of someone's cock...that was a sight very hard to resist. Brad silently strung together a few fantasies for later use in the privacy of his own bedroom, and the company of his right fist.

Doctor Green murmured. "Now just relax, I've done this dozens of times." He looked at House directly. "On _BMs_." Green palpated the left side of House's belly, the small cucumber-sized swelling giving here and there under his fingers. Perfectly normal. But the man's rib cage..."Doctor House, you are far too thin. Just how bad _is_ your partum nausea? Have you been able to eat properly?"

House shook his head. "Not really."

a

Green nodded his prognosis. "Well, despite your alarmingly under-weight condition, the baby seems healthy. Good movement - good size, too. Head size seems normal. Now we'll check his limbs..." Green ran his fingers gently over the right side of his patient's lower abdomen, most fetuses at this stage lying horizontally left to right across their father's womb wall. Green was shocked to discover a surprise. "You did realize, didn't you, that there appear to be two fetuses in here?" He announced, probing deeper to determine if the second fetus was as healthy as the first.

Green frowned. The limbs of the first must be lying beneath the torso of the second. One would probably be smaller than the other. Twins, when competing for the same resources, often ended up slightly mismatched when it came to birth-weight. Green spent another minute or so searching for the tell-tale walnut-sized head and limbs of the second fetus, that ought to be kicking back at his intrusion into his secret world.

House went pale. _"Two!?"_ He felt like a fool for having to admit that he'd had no idea. "No, I didn't know that." Twins _again_? "_Shit!_" Which was odd, because with the other two sets of twins he had given birth to, he had felt their increasingly restless dueling feet by the end of the first week.

Green spent several minutes ever-so-gently trying to shift the tiny thing with two fingers, his face so far betraying nothing, much to House's irritation. House was used to Wilson's pouring forth of feelings whenever it came to his pregnancies, his mate often breaking open and gushing like a broken dam, drowning everyone around him in an emotional mud-slide.

"_Well?" _House wanted this over-with. He wanted to get home and devise a clever way to tell Wilson that not only was he preggers for the third time with Chase's baby, it was in fact the _fourth_ time as well. At both at the _same_ time. It would have to be a convincing, sorrowful explanation that encouraged much sympathy if he wanted to avoid Wilson's irritatingly fake smile and infuriatingly stupid jealousy. "Are they healthy or not?" This was taking all day and Green hadn't even gotten to the painful bowel part of the examination yet.

Green removed his glasses, cleared his throat a couple of times, and pulled up a tall stool next to the table to sit on. In about two seconds, his manner had gone from friendly ol' country doctor to deadly-serious. "Your second baby, Doctor House, is - I'm sorry to say - not a second baby." He sighed. He hated giving bad news to an expectant dad. "You have a growth."

House thought the man had gone insane, or that Brad was pulling an elaborate joke on him. House decided it was a combination of the two and sat up, mentally brushing off Green's disturbingly dead-pan face. "Can you even _see_ out of those glasses?" House wiggled his backside off the table, and began pulling up his jeans. Straightening his tee-shirt, he said - "I do _not_ have a "growth". I'm pregnant - I have a _baby_. Two, even."

Green, old and experienced enough to have heard it all; fear, denial, and all of the other in-between emotional upheavals people served up to their tormenters when those tormenters gave them terrible news. "I've dealt with dozens of BM and their pregnancies, doctor House, and have examined hundreds of pregnant males. This is not news I give lightly or with supposition. You have _one_ child nestled in your womb wall. The other is most likely a womb-wall neoplasm. I've seen these before, they occur more commonly with the older BM. The growth is probably pressing against your small bowel, just above the appendix, causing distension - hence the nausea, and then subsequent explosive secretion. - the diarrhea. That you're still passing stool is good news, since it means the tumor hasn't completely infiltrated your intestine."

House stood in front of Green, his eyes on the worn carpet, listening with only half attention. The rest of his thoughts were centered around not so much the tumor on the right, but the baby on the left. House comprehended all of the awful possibilities of what the cancer might or might not be, or might or might not do. that wasn't what was foremost on his mind at that moment. "What about the baby?"

"If we can remove the baby along with the womb and the tumor, the chances are good we could save the baby, not to mention your life. But I must tell you, Doctor House, of the risks associated with performing such an invasive operation in quarters as primitive as this. There would also be a high risk for post-operative infection, not to mention the post-operative pain you would have to endure, largely without any real effective analgesics..."

"What if I let it go full term? What then?" House already knew the answers, but a consult never hurt.

Green sighed, rubbing his eyes. "Then the risk would be that the tumor is given time to grow larger, or time to metastasize if it hasn't already. As well, there would of course be greater risk to the baby, not to mention going through labor with such a mass attached to your womb would be...excruciating. If it separated from the endometrial wall during delivery, you could hemorrhage."

House finally looked up at Green. He was out of clever quips. House nodded his thanks, gathered his coat and stepped out into the afternoon sun. Despite the cold, late fall weather, everything was bathed in sunlight and looked beautiful.

Brad thanked doctor Green with a hand-shake, following House, easily catching up to his slow advance with the cane slipping on the ice and his limp more pronounced than ever. "I..." Brad had no idea what to say. House was a bit of a bastard, but no one deserved this. "I'm sorry. I didn't think the news would be so...awful."

House ignored his pointless and utterly useless noises of sympathy. "I'd appreciate it if you would keep this under wraps for now."

"Are you nuts? This can't _wait_ - you need an operation - _now_." Brad said. This stubborn BM never seemed to think about his own health and it bugged the hell out of him. No wonder Wilson had perpetual bags under his eyes. He probably never got any sleep for the worrying.

"I know." House halted his progress, his leg needed the respite. Brad had called him Greg, which meant either Brad didn't hate him as much as he used to, or he was just feeling guilty for having yelled so often at a crippled, pregnant and, now, new cancer victim. Probably the second option.

"I'm a goddamn doctor, too." House snapped back. "Why does _every_one keep forgetting that?" House felt a wave of nausea. Now that he knew the cause, it seemed far more insidious. He tried to calm down, resuming his slow march toward home. "I'm just asking for a few days until I can figure out how to tell everyone. You've lived with us for a few weeks, _I've_ spent _**eons**_with them, and I know how they'll react. Chase will probably _cry_, Wilson will _faint_, and Foreman..." Maybe...? Yeah, he could probably count on Foreman to be the most clear-headed one. He would tell Foreman first, so his homie' star pupil could help him deal with the other two emotional mush-balls.

"Wilson and Foreman should be home tomorrow, or the next day. Just give me a couple of days after that to tell them about this."

Brad stopped, staring away over the city hall grounds, its green grass of summer now brown and dead, but hidden in a pretty blanket of snow. "Two days?" He hated lying to Chase. He was such a nice guy. And Foreman was hot. they were all nice men. Well, except for House, who wasn't nice but wasn't as awful as he had first judged.

Brad looked at the BM's pale face. House stared away across the road also, though Brad had no idea what he was looking at. But standing this close to him, House's cheek bones were pronounced, and the sides of his face hollow. The veins beneath his parchment skin Brad could easily follow with his naked eye. House was so thin and shaking like a leaf (though trying to hide it), the man looked ready to collapse. "Okay."

XXXXXX

Part IX asap


	9. Chapter 9

FATHERLAND

Part IX

**(Sequel to Remember Zion)**

By GeeLady

Time-line: Post final season. **Alternate Universe**/Future events

Summary: _"Suffer the children to come unto me. . .for such is the kingdom of heaven."_

Pairing: House/Wilson/Foreman/Chase/Others

Rating: NC-17 **SLASH** ADULT. **M-PREG!!** Angst. (You have been warned).

Disclaimer: The blue-eyed babe with the cane - _**sigh!**_ - is not mine.

**As by reader request, here is a short family tree for the House family in FATHERLAND:**

Children By Foreman and House - _**Reid**__ and __**Gordon**_

Children by Wilson and House - _**Lee**_ (who was murdered by the town's people of East New Dawn), the _**Un-named **_still-born__ (that House gave birth to in the woods outside of New Dawn), _**David James, Greg-Michael & John-Daniel **_(the twin Blue-eyes now the "property" of the Interim Government), _and__** James Evan **__(_another Blue)

Children by Chase and House - _**Jordan, Rowan and Callum**_

Child by Danny ("Jesse") Johnson (who was murdered) and House - _**Shamus Drake Johnson-House **_(whom House refuses to call anything but Drake)

Children by Eli (who was shot) and House - _**Reuben**_ and _**Duncan**_

*House also had one child by Josh (the kidnapper/rapist)__whom he named_**Evan**__, (_who died of an untreatable metabolic condition known as Tyrosinemia - though House actually put his baby to death so he would not have to suffer any longer).

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The returning caravan rolled up main street the next afternoon.

House locked himself away in his bedroom, telling Brad "Tell them I'm laying down, and make sure Foreman comes to see me first. Just keep the others occupied or something, with the kids."

Brad assured him that he would do his best, and took Foreman aside as soon as he spotted him among the milling welcome-ers. Hugs and kisses were exchanged, then people hurried away to their own homes.

Foreman knocked on House's door and, without waiting for word, entered.

House was seated on the edge of the bed, leaning over to his right, as though he had a turnip under his left buttock and it was making life a bit uncomfortable.

Foreman gave him a warm kiss of greeting. "Hey." He said.

House answered "Hey. Any word on the twins?"

Foreman sat beside him. "No. We have to wait for them to send notice."

House nodded as though he had fully expected nothing else. Foreman could see the lines of tension around House's mouth and his sunken eyes. "What's going on? You look thinner than when we left, and I didn't think that was possible."

House tried to make light but he wasn't feeling it. "After three weeks on the road, you're no prize." He rubbed gently at his left side. It was then that Foreman noticed the bulge beneath House's baggier than usual shirt. "Holy shit - are you _pregnant?"_

House nodded. Foreman wasn't displeased at all, and grinned like a man about to be a step-dad-ied all over again. "Looks like Chase kept himself occupied while we were away."

"Shut-up." House snapped.

Foreman sighed. Yup, same old House. "Then tell me what's going on with you. Why the weight loss and why are you avoiding Wilson?"

House took a deep breath and grimaced.

Foreman crouched down in front of House, placing his right hand on the left side of House's belly. "Are you having labor pain?"

House shook his head. He nodded to the door where no one stood. "I need your help with the others."

Odd request. House meant Wilson, Chase and the new guy. "What sort of help?"

House shook his head this time. "Just Wilson and Chase. You know Wilson will freak when he learns I'm pregnant with Chase's baby."

"Yeah, but he'll just have to deal, won't he?"

"And that's just the ante. Wait until you hear the raise." House took another deep breath. He looked like he hadn't slept in days and he sounded ground down to one-quarter the man he was just a few weeks ago. "I went to another Doctor here. Doctor Green. Heard of him?"

"Sure. Old ob-gyn. Until we arrived, he was the only physician in town. Lives next to the hospital." A building, Foreman knew, that was hardly fit enough to be called such. No antibiotics, no array of particularly useful drugs, and few other specialized medicines. They had managed to scrape together a collection of anesthetics and some liquid analgesics, the looters most likely leaving those behind because they had no idea what the labels meant. Blankets, sheets, rubber gloves, a large box of sterile gauze and one out-of-date surgeons kit with the scalpels missing made up the bulk of their hospital's inventory. No working autoclave. Some limited electricity. Boiled, filtered water. A good collection of gowns and sheets, however, all hand-washed in home-made ash and lye soap, then disinfected with a mixture of baking soda, hydrogen peroxide and vinegar, each batch laced with lemon juice to keep the sharp smell under control. Not as effective as chlorine bleach but it did the job.

"Yeah, well, he did an exterior pelvic -"

Foreman gripped House's thighs, preparing himself for the worst. He sucked in a breath. "Is the baby okay?"

House nodded, looking very convincing. "Yes, fine. For now. But the bad news is I have a bilateral neoplasm on my endometrial wall, right side. It's been causing some bowel interference and Green thinks the sooner it's gone, the better."

Foreman stared at House like he was crazy. Then his eyes shifted to House's belly, and didn't move. "Holy shi...well - fuck - I _agree_. Just how bad is it? Have you had a biopsy?"

"We're going to get all that done, but the thing is Green thinks he should do a cesarean as soon as possible. He thinks going full term with a tumor this size will pose too much risk to the baby. Could interfere with delivery or cut off his oxygen."

Foreman closed his eyes. "Shit." He whispered. "Shit, babe'....this tumor would have to have been there a while."

"Yeah. Probably a few months at least."

Since before Evan was born then, and growing ever since. "Green's right, and so are you, about Wilson that is - he is going to completely freak. Double - _triple _freak. Does Chase know about this? I assume he knows about the baby since he was at the face-off, but what about the tumor?"

"I haven't told him yet. Thing is, Green needs an assistant. Either Chase because he was a surgeon's assistant, or Wilson because he's the oncologist."

That would be tough. Neither could directly assist because neither would be good candidates for objectivity when the baby and father at risk was their own BM and his unborn son. Foreman shook his head. His bad news was relatively tame compared to this. "Holy shit." It wasn't quite the home-coming he had expected. "I'll assist."

House nodded, relieved Foreman wanted the job. He was an excellent doctor. Wilson or Chase would both be too emotionally involved to be able to make the right choice if the choice had to be made. "Thanks. I need someone with a clear head in case something goes wrong." House looked at him, expecting, now, the professional to be showing, and ready. "If it comes to a choice between my life or the baby's - you're to choose the baby."

Foreman considered it. Professional or no professional, he wanted both to come out of this all right. "If it comes down to that, and only if in my judgment it's clear the baby has a _good_ chance to survive, I'll adhere to your wishes. But I'm telling you right now, if I think he's going to die with or without the sacrifice of your life, I'm going to choose your life."

House nodded. Dad or no dad, he himself was still a doctor. He knew the risks and he refused to let his emotions argue against reasonable medical judgment. "Fair enough. Probably won't come to that. Green thinks the kid is healthy."

-

-

Wilson demanded to do his own examination when he learned of the tumor. At Chase's and Foreman's urging, House finally agreed and lay down on the couch while Wilson palpated his abdomen much the way Green had, though where Green's touch had been strictly clinical, Wilson's was clinical _and_ tenderly affectionate. Wilson also did a check of House's lymph's from his cervical to his popliteal nodes.

Wilson was done. "No swelling of any nodes." He nodded to House that he was finished, and House pulled his tee-shirt down, zipping up his jeans as far as they would go. The metal snap would no longer close around his expanding lower belly. Wilson looked pale and drawn. "We're operating tomorrow."

House objected. "The baby's not due for another three days."

Wilson washed his hands, wiping them on a tea towel. "I know."

"The greatest part of the baby's growth is during the final week." House reminded him. "Even three days early could be too early."

Wilson. "What if that tumor is malignant? Or is about to become so? The sooner we get it out, the safer for you."

House stared at his mate from beneath angry brows. He understood a little bit about cancer, having worked along-side Wilson for many years, and being that he wasn't an idiot. "If it's malignant, it's already too late. If it's not, an operation could spread the cancer anyway. If it's a benign mass, there's absolutely no harm in waiting. Junior'll a least have a better chance."

Wilson rubbed a hand down his haggard face. "One day. I'm willing to wait one more day."

House set his lip. "Two. Minimum."

Wilson could see House would not be moved. "Fine. Two days, but we operate in the morning and no argument from you."

It was an empty demand, House knew. Wilson had nothing to either offer or withhold. But House figured he'd pushed Wilson's nerves far enough, and Chase looked like he was ready to be sick. "Fine." House said. "Tell Green to get it ready."

-

-

The next day, while House was laying down, Foreman fetched Green for a final case discussion prior to the operation itself, which was set for the following morning. Green described the procedure to his two surgical assistants. "I welcome your skills, Doctors, believe me. A cesarean on a male is far more complicated than on a female. We'll use general anesthetic because that's all we have. He looked at Chase. "I could really use an anesthesiologist, Doctor Chase."

Chase nodded. "Brad had agreed to stay on and watch the kids for a few days longer."

Foreman wasn't sure it was a good idea. "Are you sure you're up to this? You know House's feelings on the matter. Can you keep a cool head if, well, if we lose the baby? The risk to both him and the father is about equal."

Chase nodded. "I want that baby to survive, but I wouldn't want House to die for it." Still he was shaky. Why in hell couldn't the Devil leave them the devil alone? "I'm okay."

Green continued. He'd drawn up detailed figures and handed them around to the group. "We'll wash and shave his abdomen."

Chase raised a finger. "I'll do the surgical prep'."

Green nodded, pleased. "If you notice in the diagram, the first incision opens the abdomen. With a female, this would have been either a vertical from just below the navel to the top of the pubic bone or a horizontal incision across and above the pubis, what they used to euphemistically call a "Bikini cut"." He cleared his throat. "But neither of those are useful on a pregnant male. Anatomy-wise, male pregnancy is a bit more complex. As you can see on the second page, we need to use a half moon incision.

"The male endometrial wall lies against as is attached to the underside of his anterior pubic abdominals. The womb itself is a thick membrane, very much like the female uterus, only it's posterior portion is contained and protected only by the pelvic membrane. During the first two weeks the baby will generally lie transversely over the pubic region, in between the anterior pelvic muscles and the inner portion of the rectus. At this stage, the head of the fetus almost always lies against the rectus where it is more protected from impact or injury, and the legs and feet pressing against the inner abdominals. The torso of the baby puts great pressure on the bladder and the prostate.

"As the baby grows he shifts into a horizontal position to accommodate his lengthening body, but just prior to the start of labor, he again shifts back to his original position so his father's body can do its miraculous thing, and send out the birth canal between the posterior section of the bladder and the coccyx bone. The abdominals begin their caterpillaring and the baby is squeezed out head-first through the perineum, between the scrotum and the anus. Hence our dear BM's labor pain comes at him from two fronts.

"To perform a cesarean; because of the location and nature of the male womb, we must cut through and then lift the pelvic abdominal muscles along with the womb while the wall is still attached to them. This is an extremely delicate procedure. We have to lift the womb and the baby out of the abdominal cavity still _intact_ - we literally fold the lower section of the rectus abdominals back. Hopefully we manage this prior to the formation of the birth duct, which in and of itself would cause more difficulties. But I won't go into that right now."

Green shifted his old bones on the stiff kitchen chair. It was putting his ass to sleep. "While this exterior mass is held steady, we tie off the main arteries and veins that bring oxygen, nutrients and wastes to and from the amniotic sac. We all know how many other crucial arteries an veins run through the inguinal region, so we have to be very, very careful what we tie off, and what we cut into. But once that is done, we can cut into the excised womb sac and remove the baby, tying off and cutting the main umbilical in the process. normally we would then simply fold the abdominals with the womb-wall back in place and close."

Green nodded to the papers each of the men were examining and passing along. "But not this time. The second stage we will have to do involves separating the womb-wall from the inner abdominals and doing so without causing massive hemorrhaging. The endometrial-wall is laced with thousands of micro-fibrous structures that have come to be called nano-tendons. These develop intrapartum to keep the temporary sac attached to the abdominals. Moments post birth, if everything goes according to plan, these tendons start a self-cytolytic process, die and release the sac from its parenchymal womb-wall and host musculus. At that point, we can tie off and cut the secondary artery and vein. Then we fold the muscle wall back and close the incision."

Green sighed. "I know that part sounds simple enough, but remember we'll be taking the baby early, prior to the natural schedule. If the micro-tendons do not disintegrate, we need to cut and cauterize any bleeds while we remove the sac. Then we will have to cut away the womb-wall away from the underlying muscle structure, cauterizing those bleeds - and, trust me, there will be a whole lot more - as we go. And we have to go fast, gentlemen, leaving the abdominal cavity open any longer than necessary poses a serious risk of post-operative infection."

"Has that every happened?" Foreman wanted to know. "How many cesareans have you lost?"

Green nodded. "Well, in thirteen cesareans I've had to perform for various reasons, in two of those cases, the micro-tendons did not dissolute."

"What happened?"

"Well, with one of the BM's, the father survived though he lost a lot of blood, but the baby was several days premature and died. The second BM died shortly after we delivered the baby, and the baby died a few days after that. The womb-sac is catacombed with blood vessels, we didn't have a surgical electro-cauterizer, and the red-hot end of a probe was a damn poor substitute. Unfortunately, the earlier you try to take a BM baby by cesarean, the bigger the risk to the baby and its father. I'm hoping that, by waiting until almost the last possible hour, the nanotendocytolytic process will occur naturally, so we won't encounter that problem. That way we only have to cauterize at the final stage."

Chase looked beat. They all were. "When did you decide to become a.." He made up a word..."OB-Androhysterogenologist?"

"When my old clients died out. Where the _new_ wombs could be found seemed to be where I would be of the most use."

-

-

Green closely supervised Foreman's technique. "Now, just work your fingers slowly, very slowly, beneath the open wall of the sac. Excellent. Yes, Now, when I say lift, you very gently lift. As you're lifting I will be folding back the pelvic structure." Green nodded to his second assistant, waiting and ready to help. "Doctor Wilson will hold it in place while I tie off the primary artery and vein." Green took a deep breath, grasping the crudely constructed but effective cauterizer that had been mocked up by a local new resident, a former electrician. "You ready?"

Foreman didn't feel all that ready. He had his hands inside his three weeks pregnant BM mate, ready to elevate his womb-sac complete with unborn baby out into the cold air. It was simply surreal. "As ready as I'll ever be."

"Okay," Green instructed. "Lift."

The womb sac was incised and the tiny baby was swiftly removed to a second table, encouraged to breath and cleaned off. A tiny mewing wail set up in the room, signaling a healthy set of lungs. "Music to me ears." Green remarked. But there was more to do. "Okay, we still have to excise this womb."

An hour and one half later, after Foreman put the last of seventeen stitches into House's antiseptic stained abdomen, he covered him with a sheet, removed his gloves and joined the rest of the team in the wash-up room. Here there were showers and sinks and benches to rest upon.

Chase was busy settling House in post-op recovery. Then he joined his fellow physicians, plopping his tired bones down beside Foreman, who threw an arm over his shoulders. "Baby's all right, Chase. And House, too."

Chase nodded, limp with relief. They all could breath again.

-

-

The sting of an alcohol swab along the jagged line of his incision woke House up from a dreamless sleep. "Sorry." That was Wilson's voice, apologizing for the discomfort he was causing him. "I'm trying to be gentle, but we have to make sure to keep your stitches clean."

Wilson would know that House would know that. Wilson always talked when it wasn't necessary. Never-the-less House managed one reassuring "'s-'kay." He was so tired, and so sore. "What did you guys do to me?" This time his speech was much clearer. The anesthetic was leaving his body.

"They baby's fine, House. You did good."

"'N th' tumor?"

Wilson's voice was light with relief. "Benign."

A sort of calm swept over him. He had been far more worried about that than he had let on. "You did the biopsy?"

"Yes. Green confirmed. Pregnant women sometimes got benign growth, it has to do with raging hormones. Guess it was only right that men would have to suffer the same risks."

House nodded, not concerned about it now. "How was the trip?" He asked. "Did you miss me?"

Wilson knew what he was asking. "I didn't detoxify from your irresistible body, if that's what you mean."

House smiled a bit. Coughed. "So the mixture's doing the trick, huh?"

Wilson nodded, recalling that he was wearing, even now, one of small patches of "sexy mojo" that House had concocted so Wilson could take the trip in the first place. The answer to Wilson's bizarre addiction to House had been so simple as to be ridiculous, and, according to Wilson, a little gross. A mixture of House's own saliva and other body fluid, (other than wastes), had been collected. Once a day, all Wilson needed to do was wear one of the patches, soaked in House's "essence" against his skin. Wilson could feel the thing under his left armpit. Definitely gross. "These things start to smell after a day you know." He would need a bath tonight.

"I still think most of your addiction is psychological. You just can't live without me."

"It's not just psychological." Wilson loved House very deeply, but he was _not_ addicted to him only in his mind. "This is not a conversion disorder."

"Your argument, Wilson."

True, Wilson had hammered that point against House's forehead for years about his Vicodin use. How ironic that he found himself in the opposing position now. "Well, anyway, it worked."

"'Course, I'm a genius."

Wilson leaned over the bed and kissed him. House was too weak to even lift an arm to push Wilson's wet lips away. House was pale as the pillow case, but he still looked better lying here awake with his body intact, rather than split open on an operating table. Wilson shoved a flat pillow beneath House's right knee. "How's the leg?"

"A lot better than my stomach."

"Mmm." Wilson said. "How are you feeling? Really?"

"Really? _Really_ tired, now go away."

"I'll bring you some soup later." Wilson left him alone, and House tried to shift his backside into a more comfortable position, but there was no way he would be able to sleep on his side yet. In a day or so, maybe. The operation had been a success, he was rid of the tumor, the baby was safe, and he would live.

But also, there was something missing from him now. He felt the odd cavity of the daddy-hood organs that he had carried for nearly five years. There was a hole in his body, something that should be there but was now gone, making him incomplete. As strange as having a womb plus accessories had seemed when new, it was even weirder to feel their absence. No longer would he become pregnant. As much as that was a relief, it also brought with it an unexpected feeling of loss.

House never thought he would feel sad to see that aspect of him go. Sex would be easier - no worry of pregnancy anymore, but that very ability, the part he played in all their lives that had made him special for years, had also ended. House now couldn't help but wonder in what other ways his life was about to change.

And he was right to wonder it, because there was one immutable fact that had been seared into his brain in this new, upside-down fucked-up world: nothing ever stayed the same, but changed. Sometimes for the good, often for the bad. Life was a gamble, and change was life's last river; the final card. The sole remaining, unwavering truth.

House closed his eyes against the uncertainty. No point in worrying about the things he could not see. Tomorrow was another day in this new life, and he slept.

XXXXXXXX

Part X asap


	10. Chapter 10

FATHERLAND

Part X (final)

**(Sequel to Remember Zion)**

By GeeLady

Time-line: Post final season. **Alternate Universe**/Future events

Summary: _"Suffer the children to come unto me. . .for such is the kingdom of heaven."_

Pairing: House/Wilson/Foreman/Chase/Others

Rating: NC-17 **SLASH** ADULT. **M-PREG!!** Angst. (You have been warned).

Disclaimer: The blue-eyed babe with the cane - _**sigh!**_ - is not mine.

**As by reader request, here is a short family tree for the House family in FATHERLAND:**

Children By Foreman and House - _**Reid**__ and __**Gordon**_

Children by Wilson and House - _**Lee**_ (who was murdered by the town's people of East New Dawn), the _**Un-named still-born **_ (that House gave birth to in the woods outside of New Dawn), _**David James, Greg-Michael & John-Daniel **_(the twin Blue-eyes now the "property" of the Interim Government), _and__** James Evan **__(_another Blue)

Children by Chase and House - _**Jordan, Rowan and Callum **__and the very last child House produces__** - Reegan**_

Child by Danny ("Jesse") Johnson (who was murdered) and House - _**Shamus Drake Johnson-House **_(whom House refuses to call anything but Drake)

Children by Eli (who was shot) and House - _**Reuben**_ and _**Duncan**_

*House also had one child by Josh (the kidnapper/rapist)__whom he named_**Evan**__, (_who died of an untreatable metabolic condition known as Tyrosinemia - though House actually put his baby to death so he would not have to suffer any longer).

House was curled on his left side and, with his right hand, was playing with the fingers of his and Chase's newest and tiniest creation. His left hand he held tightly against his pelvis. The sight of his incision was covered in an thick abdominal pad kept in place with wide strips of bleached cotton to assist in healing and in avoiding any possible hernia. House tucked his left hand over the uncomfortable contraption as an added support. He had to wear it for ten days minimum; which sucked because that meant no nookie. If anyone would even want nookie with him anymore.

"Mind if I spend the night here?" Wilson asked. He petted the incredibly soft skin of the baby's cheek, almost too delicate to be real. "Chase got you for two nights in a row this week. I mean, I get it, he's a new daddy again, but it's my turn." Wilson let the tiny tot curl impossibly small fingers around the tip of his pinky. "What are you going to call him?"

"I'm still thinking about it."

"Is Chase helping?"

"No." House said too quickly. Then looked at Wilson apologetically. "What do you think of Reegan?"

"Like the late president? The one who was the actor?"

"No, like _Reegan_. Long "e". It's Irish."

"Nice ring to it. What does it mean?"

House looked a bit embarrassed. "Little king."

"Sounds perfect."

House nodded. "Reegan it is." He yawned. "You don't have to stay here all day, too, you know."

Wilson felt perfectly comfortable to laze the day away with his mate and his new step-son. "I _want_ to stay here all day."

House appeared unconvinced. "Right. On this nice, narrow, hard as nails hospital bed. Who could say no?"

Wilson just smiled a little, one of his mysterious smiles that irked House to no end, and this time enough that he voiced his irk. "Why aren't you freaking out? You come home to me with cancer _and _me with another kid - a kid _not_ by you - and you're not freaking out."

Wilson raised his own eyebrows, puzzled at himself a little as well. "The kid was a bit of a surprise I admit, but cancer...that sort of made everything else beside the point. Having you around to love _with_ Chase's baby, is better than you _not_ around. Plus..." The baby was sleeping, frowning now and then at the large finger's intrusion into his baby dreams of suckling and large noisy creatures. Reegan was hazel-eyed and as cute as a bug on a bug's ear. "The little guy's perfectly welcome. He's family for crying out loud, why wouldn't I want him? He's half _you_."

"Hmm." House sighed then grimaced. Too much movement with that inhale.

"How's the incision?"

"It's feeling just fine. I, on the other hand..." House said. "No more babies anymore."

Wilson nodded. House was alive. The tumor had been benign. That was all he had asked for. "I know."

"It feels...." House looked for the right word, "weird. To not have that all that crap inside me."

So House was missing having his baby-making parts? Wilson found that endearing, though he wisely said nothing what-ever about that to House. "I'm sure you'll get used to it."

-

-

The kids were in their beds (and some well padded boxes that were serving as cribs for the tiniest ones), all of them finally asleep. Chase approached the couch where Foreman sat reading an old book on civil law. Rather than easing himself into the chair, Chase dropped down hard, bouncing once. "I'm exhausted." He glanced at the book title. "A little light reading before bed?"

"Yeah." Foreman glanced around. "Brad go home?"

Chase shook his head. "No. No he didn't." He looked at Foreman a little sheepishly. "He's sort of staying in my room tonight. In my bed. With me."

Foreman, eyebrows on the rise - "Oh." He nodded, closing the book. "You two an item?"

Chase thought about it, and nodded. "You know, I think we are."

Foreman glanced around again, then lowered his voice. "Does Wilson and House know of this blooming new romance?"

Chase sighed, puffing his lips out. "About that - I wanted to talk to you about something. Something weird's happening. To me, I mean."

"Oh?"

Chase talked very softly. House was still at the hospital recuperating, and Wilson was spending the night there as well, so they were alone except for Brad who had gone to bed directly after dinner. For now Chase wanted to keep his concerns about House between himself and Forman only. Brad was a good guy but he really didn't know him well enough yet to be sure he didn't eavesdrop.

The coast looked clear enough to voice his troubles. "Yeah, yeah,...see I still love House, I care about him and all that, but ever since his operation, ...I just,...there's no..." He gestured uncertainly, his hands forming hard to defined shapes to explain his hard to defined feelings. "I don't have that _spark_ for him anymore. You know, the drive to, well, nail him to the wall. It's like when they removed the parts of House that made babies, they also removed the parts of him that made me sex crazy _for_ him." Chase looked away. "Does that make sense? Seems like it was only those parts that - "

"- worked the stick shift?" Foreman finished, sucking in air between his teeth. "Don't look now, but I've been feeling the same thing. We could talk to Green about it. Maybe he's encountered this before. House probably isn't producing those powerful pheromones anymore, or their potency has diminished enough that our parts have lost interest."

Chase leaned back, rubbing his face in both hands. "Oh, thank god. I thought it might be something wrong with me." He quickly took a furtive glance toward the stairs to ensure they were not being overheard. He hadn't meant for that to sound so callous. "I hope this is normal for a BM who's had a hysterectomy." He leaned back on the couch, every sound making him jump. "I felt like a new hire-e. Like House is my boss again and I have no idea how to act around him." How come things just couldn't stay as they are. "What do you suppose it's doing to House?"

Foreman didn't voice it, but he supposed a physical change this dramatic was probably making House feel less attractive or useless - or both. The former famous diagnostician was always complaining that he didn't mentally have enough to do. Up until now, keeping the man pregnant had been a rather effective distraction for that brilliant, restless mind. A delightful solution that had well occupied their nights, and thoroughly suited the sexual tastes of Foreman and every other sire in the household.

But now House wouldn't have the task of carrying around their babies in his belly. They had enough daytime help with the children that it wasn't a twenty-four hour task for any of them. Shifts worked just fine, and House got the most rest time because of his leg pain and mobility problems that tended to wear him out more quickly than the others. House was probably feeling the shadow of old age more acutely since he had turned fifty-five and was now "neutered", at least in the baby-making department. And now he had just undergone a major operation. Another scar for the collection.

Foreman was shocked to hear himself say it (because saying such things within House's hearing would only have earned him a painful cuff on the ear), though he had over the years often felt it. "I kinda' feel bad for him. Why don't we bring it up with Wilson in the morning, after he's home from the hospital?"

Chase nodded and got up to go check on the children. Foreman stayed planted firmly on the couch, thinking. Why House always seemed to get the short end of the stick, he had no idea, and no answers. But it must truly suck to be the target of that much bad karma.

-

-

"Think the other's will get used to it?"

"I'm not sure I get your meaning."

"Foreman and Chase, Danny, Eli, anyone of you, wanted to be with me 'cause I had the stuff that made the babies. I produced the mojo that made all of your nuts _nuts_."

Wilson nodded. "Um hm. 'Kay."

"But it's not down there anymore. The nuts will come to their senses now."

Wilson touched House's face with a finger, tracing the line of his cheek and the long shallows on his neck. "You think that's the only reason any of us ever wanted you?"

House allowed the petting. Wilson had been gone for three weeks. Too damn long. "I _know_ that's the only reason."

Wilson sighed. "House, that was the reason the sex might have been outstanding, but, and I'm only speaking for myself, that's not the reason I ever came to you. I love you. Loved you. Practically since the day I _met_ you. Not always in the same way of course but - yeah. Call me lame, but it was love."

"That is lame. Back then, you didn't even know me."

"But I guess I knew you just enough to love you right away. You bailed out a _stranger_. Five thousand dollars. I might have turned out to been a total jerk - you didn't know." God, what a long time ago that seemed now. A lifetime, a century, another era. But, as the Earth went around the sun, only twenty years.

"You asked me five times, politely, to stop playing Billy Joel on the juke box." House reminded him. "No ones asks five times, or if there's another lame ass out there who ever did, it wouldn't be done politely. Trust me, you were a nice, not-boring lame ass I could take advantage of. I could tell."

A man was wheeled in beside House. Conscious and sweating with a distended stomach. He set up a series of soft groans.

House sat up a bit, craning his neck to get a look at the guy, and ignoring Wilson's insistence he lay back down. "You're supposed to rest."

House glared at him like a persistent fly. "I'm only lifting my head, that's not a marathon." Then he asked the guy, not bothering to be politely quiet or introduce himself. "Gas?"

Wilson answered for the patient, shaking his head, remembering to keep his own voice down. "No. Foreman thought liver failure, kidney failure, but everything's pumping like clock-work. Him and Green are stumped."

House frowned. "I was asking him." He watched the guy continuously rub his large belly. "Hey." House asked. "Are you in pain?"

The fellow swallowed a couple of times. "No. Not really. Uncomfortable. Sometimes I get cramps. It's hard to sleep, and I keep puking."

House thought for a moment. "When?"

"When what?"

"When do you puke?"

"After a lousy night sleep. Sometimes after I eat."

"Nausea, too?"

"Yeah. But I'm eating pretty normally."

House lay back down. "What color are your eyes?"

"Brown."

"Uh huh. You got a Blue at home?"

"Yes."

"Is he pregnant?"

"Yes."

"how close is he to labor?"

"'Bout a day or so." The guy said, afterward letting out a low moan that went on for a few seconds, sounding like a cow in mourning.

House threw Wilson a satisfied look. Wilson sat back, feeling like a fool. "Couvade Syndrome."

The man burped. "What? What syndrome?"

House explained. "Couvade Syndrome. Bad news: you're suffering from pregnancy sympathy. More bad news: you're going to look and feel like you do right now until your BM pops his cork. Good news: it'll all go away a few days later. Doc' Green'll fill you in."

The fellow in the other bed rubbed one hand, fingers splayed, over his enormous belly. "You mean my body thinks I'm pregnant because my Blue is pregnant?"

Wilson had enjoyed the entire exchange. House was depressed, and thin and recovering from painful hysterectomy surgery plus he just had another baby via that surgery. But he was still House. He whispered to him. "You're very sexy when you're diagnosing someone."

At this sweet compliment, House's brows came together in a pinch and he said - "You're an idiot."

-

-

**THIRTEEN YEARS LATER:**

Wilson was feeling his age more and more as they years wore on. He was fifty-five now, and swore his spine was sixty. Wilson carried two hot cups of fresh brewed tea - no more coffee for House, now sixty-eight years old and slowing down more and more each day.

Wilson placed the morning beverage on the bedside table. House he had let sleep in almost every day now. There was no need to rise early and make formula. With the help from Chase, Foreman and Brad, Wilson had got the children up, dressed, filled their bellies with oatmeal and milk and had sent them off to school two hours before. The house was quiet.

House, older, his leg in more pain as his muscles (as muscles do in the aging), began to waste, needed rest more and more. Wilson feared it was a weakening heart but each day he found some way to check House's pulse just to make sure. House had done his best to hinder Wilson from poking and prodding him like a worried aunt. It had become a kind of game between them. Wilson chased and poked, House limped in retreat and glowered. Neither of them really meant it.

House woke at the sound of the door opening and someone walking in the room.

Wilson saw and left off trying to be quiet. "Morning."

House sat up, pulling himself into a more or less sitting position and reaching for a cup. He sipped and made a face. "Tea again?" He said it almost every morning.

"Yes. Your poor stomach can't tolerate the levels of caffeine in coffee. You're a tea man now." Wilson sat on the edge of the bed and sipped his own drink. It was okay, but House was right, he missed coffee. He'd sworn off of it as a way of supporting House in his caffeine abstinence. "Last night was great." He added, pleased at the slightly red flush on House's face from his remark. House was pleased Wilson was pleased and Wilson was delighted with that, too. "You may be turning sixty-nine in two days but you still got it, House." He leaned in and stole a kiss between sips. "You're still a damn sexy man."

"My birthday. Please say you've made every plan to ignore it."

"Nope. We're having cake at least. And presents. I wouldn't torture you with music, hats or streamers, but cake and presents are mandatory."

House forced his brows into an extra deep pinch, the little fleshy hills between brows and lines all jumbled up together, making him appear very stern.

Wilson saw through it like trace-paper. "What do you want for your birthday, babe'?"

"A cup of coffee."

"Besides that."

House stared into his cup. Softly - "You _know_ what I want."

Wilson nodded. He wanted the same thing he had asked for the last twelve years, though he wished House had picked something else, or at least something in addition to this his usual request. "Yeah." Wilson answered. House wanted to see his twin boys again. He wanted them to come home. Wilson wondered if House had it stuck in his head that the twins were somehow still babies and if they did by some miracle come home, House could hold them in his arms again.

"They've got to be thirteen now." Wilson felt choked up about it, too. Two beautiful blue-eyed children he had produced from House's amazing belly, which babies he had not set eyes on for more than a decade. Each year they had re-applied to the Office of Declaration at "Community Seven.", where they had first made that next to useless two and a half week trip, and each time their application for visiting rights as the birth-parents had been denied without explanation. Thirteen trips. Thirteen applications. Thirteen denials. Suddenly, he wished he had not said anything more, as the very thought of missing out on two of his children's growing years left him feeling depressed, and he didn't want to feel depressed right now - not with House's birthday coming up.

But they had the other children. Eleven had been enough to handle, enough to worry over, though it had never totally appeased the old anguish over his stolen two. Funny how so many offspring still present (as marvelous as they were), still couldn't quite make up for the two that had been lost.

House nodded, drained his cup, casually waving away any more talk of them. It was an old subject. "I doubt we would recognize them now."

House was making great effort to speak as though his own anguish had faded to manageable doses, and Wilson thought it best to change the subject. "Come on, I need to go to the Exchange and barter for some cake-making ingredients, and you need to get out of the house."

"I'm sixty-_eight_. I need to pee, then I need breakfast, _then_ you can drag me where you want to."

It was a fair bargain. Wilson loved doing all those things for him. Except for the peeing of course.

-

-

House's sixty-ninth came and went with pleasant food, a round white cake (Wilson only put a single candle in the middle. _Sixty-nine_ flaming wax sticks might have sparked a House tantrum and a mashed cake), and presents. Foreman had made him a rocking chair, earning him a dark scowl from House, who barked "Thanks, but just so you know, I'm never sitting in it." Never-the-less, he looked grateful.

Foreman just grinned. House would use it. As soon as his back was turned, his retired BM would sit his bony ass down and test its comfort. Foreman knew House knew as well as he did, that rocking in a chair released endorphins which relieved pain.

Chase and Brad had spent spare hours combing through some the un-used tumbled down houses of Rio Dell, and collected together a dozen books of every description - a prize for any household. House would have plenty of fiction and non-fiction reading material for his hours spent in the lovingly carved rocker.

Wilson had sewn House half a dozen new long-sleeved shirts, mostly white and blue, which was about the only colors available in the traded-for cotton material. He had even taken the time to secretly barter for three tee-shirts, which he either dyed alternate colors or embroidered with a design he hoped House would find cool enough to wear.

House held up one pale green tee-shirt and examined the embroidery. "When did you learn to embroider?" He asked, looking at Wilson like he had just morphed into a girl.

"Secretly. Do you like the design?"

House frankly admired the workmanship. Wilson had clearly spent countless hours embroidering in a picture of a red Corvette. Like the one he used to own before the world went missing. "And when did you learn to spell?"

"Very funny." Wilson said. "Do you _like_ it?"

House folded it and placed it on the dinner table. "'Course I like it." He glanced around at all of them. "Thanks for the gifts." He coughed.

"You okay?" Wilson asked.

House nodded. "Don't start fretting, Martha, it's just a cold."

Wilson ignored the back-handed reference to his Stewart-like home-making. To spare House from having to emote anymore of his feelings, Wilson instead raised his glass in a toast. "To House, without whom we never would have had children."

Chase added - "Or the best ass-sex anywhere west of New Jersey."

House's bottom jaw fell open a little. Then he realized he was gaping and remarked - "You're all _sluts_." But clinked his glass of home-made wine along with his mates.

Chase smiled openly, his eyes betraying the lustful memories that were playing about in his head. He had made four children inside House. The memory of all those sweaty nights were almost as good as the real thing. Almost. then he remembered what he and Brad currently shared; perhaps not the greatest sex west of New Jersey, but closeness, affection, and a love that was growing deeper every day. It made up for much of what he, what they all, had lost after House's operation.

Except Wilson. On occasion, Chase could still hear them at night in the next room, and from the noises and squeaking of the bed springs, Wilson had lost none of his enthusiasm for sleeping with his best friend and lover. The man was not a quiet lover.

Wilson extracted a folded piece of paper from his back pocket. "And now for the final gift..." He handed the sheet of paper over to House, who looked at it strangely, then unfolded and read its short contents. House looked up at Wilson, his expression difficult to gauge. "Nasty sort of joke." He said, his good mood instantly dissipating.

"It's no joke, House." Foreman said. "It came yesterday."

Chase finished with - "Wilson is leaving tomorrow."

House knew he was not healthy enough to go. He was tired and his leg hurt more and more, and now he was getting a cold on top of it - a bad one judging by the way he felt.

House re-read the paper silently, then got up from the table and walked out to the front porch, carrying the paper loosely in his left hand while his right worked the cane action. It was gorgeous spring day. He sat on the hard bench Foreman had banged together years ago - soon to be added to by a carved and well oiled wooden rocker, and let the sun fall on his face. It eased the aches he had begun to feel all over his body. When all this had begun he had been middle-aged and still having babies, all of them looking ahead, trying to keep hope alive as they had kept themselves alive. Now the years passed like days, the days like hours.

His children were alive and well and perhaps even coming home, and he, their father, was now an old man and had missed every minute of their growing. What would he even be to them? What was he at all anymore? House felt like he was falling apart. This news should be making him happy. Finally, after thirteen years, his twin babies were theirs to see if they wished. That was a good thing, so why did he feel so empty?

Inside, Brad looked around the table at the other men. "After all these years, I still have a hard time reading him - Is House happy about this?"

Chase nodded. "'Course he is. But he's probably upset, too - emotional, and he doesn't want us seeing him like that."

Foreman said. "Just leave him alone for a while." He looked at Wilson. "All packed?"

Wilson nodded but through the window kept his eye trained on House. "Excuse me." He said, and followed House onto the porch, sitting beside him. Wilson didn't say a word, he simply leaned back on the bench alongside House and let the sun fall on his aging face as well. He was only ten years House's junior and he could feel the years racing by like spring fillies. If he reached out his hand to try and still their galloping hooves, he would not have caught between two fingers a single hair from their backs. "Are you going to be okay?"

House nodded. He supposed it was shock. Though he said it every year, he had never actually expected his wish to come true. "I'm an old man with nothing to offer them." He was feeling used up, drained of purpose, his existence pointless. "I'm sixty-nine years old."

"And you've built a legacy of children who will grow up and thrive. Eleven - no - thirteen children, all alive and well." Wilson searched his lover's tired face. "You know how many years that is combined? A thousand years. A millennium worth of good life, all because of you." House had been the genius man, the doctor who brought new life to the sick and dying. He was still proving his worth, even now. Wilson put his arm around House's slumped shoulders. "I'll bring them home, babe'."

"I'll be a stranger to them."

"You're their _father_. It won't matter." Wilson remembered how often House had insisted his own father had not mattered in his life, how he had tried to avoid his father's funeral, how he had scorned him for years. And then Wilson remembered the months of therapy House had undergone trying to deal with his messed up emotions over his dead father that he had so vehemently claimed to not give a damn about, but had loved even so. Secretly, deep down where its goodness was stirred up with the unpleasant things, where it had all churned for decades, finally erupting in the need to speak about John House, if only to ease his own conscience about not saying goodbye. John House had not been perfect but, biologically or not, House was his father's son.

Wilson spotted a small group of boys walking, his boys, some running, some wrestling in the dirt, but all on their way home to lunch after a morning in school. He could tell each son by his style of walk, gestures, hair coloring and body language as they pushed each other around, raising up clouds of red dust and laughing, or trading insults back and forth.

Reid, David, Jordan, Callum, and Drake. Just five of the thirteen. It was time to get to the kitchen and cook up some lunch for hungry kids. "Look at them."

House turned weary eyes with the beginnings of cataracts out to the dusty street. His children were walking toward them, still a half block away. Strong looking boys, all, some taller than others, a few, House knew, brighter in mind, two brighter musical - one giftedly so. Several were turning into athletic marvels, but all of his sons - unique. Every one of them was his, and though he was getting too old to tolerate the noise, or engage in sports, or sit and listen to the ruckus of their shrill teenage voices, he was quietly proud to be their one and only birth father. They had filled his life and the miserable lives of his mates with purpose and hope for many years, and would still for many more.

"Look at them, House." Wilson said again. "They're magnificent."

House nodded. Of course they were. He took a deep breath and let it out in a solid bolus of air, it was the sound of winding down in life. He felt old. At least, other than being almost all gray now, he didn't look that much older. But his walk had slowed considerably, his broken down thigh muscles continuing to shrivel along with his energy. He would not be going on this trip to find his babies. Babies who were thirteen, fourteen years old now. Wilson would go, or Foreman.

Chase would stay here, along with his now official husband. He and Brad had married in a civil ceremony a year after hooking up. Chase always did like being married. This one, however, was lasting well. Brad was crazy about the wallaby, and adored the boys. He had become an uncle to them, forming baseball teams and taking them on hikes up into the scrub-dry hills around Rio Dell.

Wilson noticed House's quiet, withdrawn demeanor. "Don't be depressed." Then pulled House toward himself to plant a smack on his rough cheek. "I hope you know I love you more now than ever."

House nodded. "Yup. And I hope you know that you're even more sentimental now than when we met. And it's even more annoying." But he didn't pull away.

-

-

Wilson showed his official pass to enter Community Seven's "Meetings" festival in the town made up of Blue babies "adopted" out to surrogate parents to be raised, educated and socialized, and eventually married off to other Blues. All for the stepped up schedule to repopulate the planet. Wilson soon learned that the children's origins had not been kept from them. In fact, the entire system seemed arranged so the Blues understood the privileged of their placements and the specialness of themselves.

Today was one of several "Introduction" days amid the two week stretch of the "Meetings" celebration, where the biological parents were allowed to finally meet the children than had been taken from them as babies. The Community appeared to be treating it like the circus had come to town. As he waited for the time to pass until his own scheduled meeting with his sons, Wilson wandered the grounds. There were kiosks of food, tables where people sat and ate or drank, and chatted. There were tent-booths set up where families could reunite, at least for a few hours, in privacy, to discuss the things both of them might have had, or not, during all their years of forced separations. Tents of strangers trying to patch up their pasts and make sense of their present feelings.

There was a town market where people traded goods for food, or just passed the time with neighborly chatter. There was a playground for the younger brown eyed children. No area was devoted to Blue eyed children. Those not old enough to meet their biological parents were kept incognito lest those parents harbored secret plans to snatch and run.

And then there were people like him. Men who had arrived alone or in pairs to meet their sons, now of age to come and go if they wished. Most had not. Wilson couldn't blame them, life in Community Seven was luxury compared to the rest of the country.

A group passed by on their way somewhere, and Wilson heard snatches of conversations and caught glimpses of fresh faces and bright blue eyes. New men just beginning to explore life from within the power and energy of blooming youth.

Wilson saw a familiar looking face.

Two, actually.

Tall, slim, hair almost right, thin faces, straight, even nose, robin-egg blue eyes emphasizing intelligence and spunk. Like and unlike. "Excuse me." Wilson followed them. Both turned, neither speaking, both curious. Both like and unlike him. One, the shorter one, though still on par with the top of Wilson's head, but whom evidently possessed not a shred of shyness - "Um, we're kind of in a hurry."

"I'm...uh..Wilson." He swallowed the lump lodged in his throat and tried to still his racing heart. Maybe he was wrong. "I'm,..I think you,...what are your names?"

The short one "Who wants to know?"

Even the voices, alike but unlike. But like enough, along with every other feature, not to be a coincidence. "I-I think..." He held out his hand for either of them to shake. "I think I'm your father."

-

-

Most of the first few minutes was spent in uncomfortable silence.

The shorter twin, John-Daniel, wearing jeans, a cotton tee-shirt and dirty sneakers, elbows on the table, fingers playing with a piece of straw, curious but momentarily bored.

His twin, Greg-Michael, sat very straight with arms crossed, reserved but not unfriendly. He appeared to be waiting politely for someone to start a conversation.

Finally it seemed John could stand the quiet no longer and broke through the stalemate. "So, biological dad," He began rudely, "where is our _birth_ dad? Why didn't _he_ come?"

Wilson linked his fingers together. "He's well, but not well enough to travel."

"What's wrong with him?" Greg asked.

"Nothing." Wilson was quick to clarify. "Nothing, but he's getting old now, and he's a bit crippled; walks with a cane. The trip would have been very painful for him." Wilson tried not to get emotional but it was proving a struggle as he stared into the eyes of his twins sons. At that moment he loathed the government's Communities more than anything on earth. "They had no right to take you from us. We were devastated. Losing you almost killed House."

"House?" The taller one, Greg, asked. His voice was softer than his brother's, and he appeared to be the calmer, more collected individual. Wilson hoped he had inherited that from his brown eyed dad. "You call him "House"?"

"His name is Gregory House. But we just call him House."

"So I'm named after him?"

"Yes." He looked at the shorter, more vocal twin. "You're named after his father and my brother."

John shook his head a little. He cared not about names. "So what is he? Where do you live? How old is he anyway. If he's too old to travel..."

"House, your father, had you when he was fifty-five years old. We started out older than most." _But we made up for it. _Even Wilson himself often had to remind himself that House, for all his health issues and constant pain, had given birth to _sixteen_ children in under six years, though not all had survived. To him, to any Brown, it was an astonishing feat. Difficult to believe sometimes, but there they sat, just two of the fifteen, almost all grown up.

Greg offered "I don't think evolution gave anyone much choice."

Wilson shook his head. "No."

John asked "So what does he do?"

"He was a doctor. A very good one. Probably the best."

"Aren't you a doctor?"

John was quick with his questions. He didn't hold to social graces or etiquette. He was at least his father's son in that way. Wilson wondered how much more of House he would find in these young men. "Yes. And two other of your father's mates are doctors. They still practice."

John blinked. "My dad had four sire-mates? All doctors?"

Wilson nodded, he had always felt a weird sort of pride about that for House. "Not all doctors but, yes, four - at one time or another."

"Wow. Horny bastard."

Wilson felt a sharp need to correct his son's manners, but held his tongue. "No more than the rest of us." He let the matter rest there. "Your birth dad wants to see you. Meet you. Are you willing to come back with me?"

John shrugged. "I'm game." He looked at his brother.

Greg thought about it, then shook his head. "I don't want to leave The Community."

John snorted and explained what he saw as his brother's idiocy to Wilson. "Greg thinks salvation lies in the hands of the government. He fully supports their bullshit program of steal from everyone and pretend it's for the good of them all."

Greg frowned, but was obviously used to his brother's outspokenness against the society that had raised them in safety and luxury. "The Community's program is sound. In a year and ten months, I'm free to mate with whomever I please - "

" - Sure! Just so long as he has pretty _blue_ eyes."

"So? It makes _sense_ to breed Blues with Blues. And Jerome was _my_ choice." He looked at Wilson and said by way of explanation - "We're engaged."

""The Community"," John scoffed. "May as well call it Fatherland, heil a salute and be done with it."

"Comparing this congregation of caring, close-knit families to Nazi Germany is grotesque."

"A gilded cage is still a cage."

Wilson listened as his son's argued their cases of pro and con over The Community. He heard tones and inflections that were pure House in both of them. The belief in one's own judgement was there in their words. That restless House intelligence that never slept was awake and thriving in these young men. "Come and meet him." Wilson interrupted before they hunkered down into a lengthy debate. "Please."

Greg licked his lips. "Maybe some day, but not right now. I can't afford to leave my studies."

Wilson perked up. "What are you studying?"

"Horticulture. I'm looking to devise methods for improving crops by enhancing resistance to drought in wheat and barley. We need to increase yields without the use of heavy equipment or a lot of artificial irrigation."

John looked over at Wilson. "Fascinating, isn't it? Grass, dirt, casting seeds, it's almost _biblical_. Greg's going to make things grow and feed the little children."

"It's honest and, by the way, _needed_ work." Greg said in defense of his chosen vocation.

"It's the choice _they_ made for you." John said, his voice full of scorn that, Wilson suspected, was more for the Community policy makers than for his brother's acceptance of it.

"At least I made one."

Wilson, trying to curtail another argument between them, asked John - "What are _you _studying?"

"At the moment - nothing. I'm biding my time breaking stones until I can legally walk out of here and never come back."

Wilson had an urge to gently lecture his son about the benefits of higher education, but didn't think it would go over well. John seemed to be more House than House in his loathing of industrious work. Wilson suspected a porn magazine was probably tucked into the inner pocket of John's summer jacket with articles such as "Brown Eyed Babes Do Blues."

"Well, what are you interested in?"

"Everything. I'm enrolled in all courses."

Wilson's eyebrows climbed his forehead. "Really? You'd have to be some kind of genius..."

"So I'm told."

Greg chuckled. "Yeah. All courses until they kicked him out of World Religion."

"I didn't agree with the pre-requisites." John answered.

Wilson raised his brows in a quest for more information.

"You have to check your brain at the door." John said. "Besides, my studies are over until August."

"Then they'll probably let you take a two week LOA from your "nothing"." Wilson prompted.

John stood up, winking at Wilson in a ghostly reflection of his absent father. "They've learned not to say no to me."

"Really?" Wilson said. It seemed being a rare and precious Blue had a certain leverage.

Greg offered. "Yup. He's an ass."

John ignored his brother's insult and looked down at this dark-haired man named James Wilson who was his father. "I'll go pack. When do we leave?"

A bit startled Wilson said. "Um, tomorrow if you want. Foreman's waiting at the camp-site with the buggy."

"Another one of my horny dad's sires?" John asked. Strictly curious.

Wilson nodded. Keeping his reactions to John's attempts to get a rise out of him innocuous wasn't easy. "Forty minute walk from town." Wilson appealed to Greg one final time. "Please come?"

The softer-sided twin shook his head but offered - "Next year I can probably find time for a short visit. It's not that I _don't_ want to meet my father, my birth-father I mean, but I've got papers due and I'm running a Triticale test half-acre. I _can't_ leave."

Wilson's face showed his disappointment, but he did understand. This was House's child. Doing the job he loved well superceded everything. John, on the other hand, shirked responsibility and couldn't wait to get on the road, adventure in his blood. House's complex, multi-layered personality seemed to have been fairly evenly split between the two. "Okay. But I'm going to tell him you said that, and if there's one thing in this world that can break you dad's heart, it's making a promise but not delivering."

"Then I promise I'll come. Next June, after school's out." Greg stood and Wilson walked around the table, impulsively pulling him into a bear hug. Wilson felt some House-resistance but also a brief hug back. Greg was trying to make him, practically a stranger (dad label or no), feel better. There was some of himself in these kids, too, Wilson was delighted to discover.

Greg shook his brother's hand - it was clear he had learned that hugging his acerbic twin only provoked, Wilson could guess, an awkward moment or perhaps sarcasm. But John did shake hands, then watched his brother walk away.

Wilson watched, too. _There goes my son, no longer a total stranger._ If Greg didn't show up next June, he would return to The Community and drag his science-geek ass back with him. Wilson wanted to know him, and he wanted his son to know their real father's. It was a timeless right that transcended all man-made laws.

He chanced an awkward moment and threw his arm briefly around his son John's shoulders. John did not shrug him off. "Dad was a doctor huh?"

Wilson heard the curiosity in his son's voice. "Your dad's a genius. As a physician he was world famous. Smartest man I've ever known. He personally toppled Laurent's Breeding Facility Program."

John actually looked a little impressed. "Really?"

"Yes."

"A hell raiser, a genius, _and_ a great doctor." John looked over and slightly up at his new dark-haired dad. He seemed like a nice guy, this James Wilson. "And you're my sire dad?"

"Yes. Sorry, but I'm not quite as smart as House."

"You are if you were smart enough to hang around with him."

Wilson felt a rush of pride and gratitude for how his son words. And his soul, running on almost empty, for so long, felt a little fuller right then. Even after all these years of not seeing, not knowing, he loved this child of his. Good things endure. The best things, if you tried hard enough. Here in John-Daniel was House-two-point-oh, if ever he saw one. "Thanks." Wilson removed his hand, not wanting to push the moment.

John asked. "If I like this Rio Dell dot on the map, think it'd be okay if I stayed more than a few weeks? I could spend the summer, that is if he and I get along. I'm not easy to live with. Greg reminds me about it every day."

Wilson took a deep breath of summer-fired air, heat-scorching his lungs. It was almost painful. But a good pain. Self-inflicted. No scars. No real harm done. Nothing that lingered. All good.

"Of course he will. He's your dad."

John walked beside him on the dust-blown highway. Drifts of soil and seed had moved in long ago, and now plants and scrub obscured almost every square meter of concrete. Free-living growth stepping in and again asserting its rightful presence. That, too, was all good.

"Come on. Let me show you the kind of Fatherland your _dad_ built."

-

-

When the younger man approached the older, all others held back and allowed the meeting to occur in privacy. Voices drifted over the lawn as father House moved off in a hobbling gimp to take a walk, and son House stepping in alongside him, matching his pace step for step. One from the other, like and unlike the other, now with each other as they should be. Ought to have been.

Both had traveled a long, hard road for this walk. The father through a kind of dark hell, and the son through a hand-crafted heaven, to both arrive here at this time, un-spotted by either and in each others presence. House deserved this joy. His life had been too hard for too long. But just because things seem like their coming to and end, doesn't mean they are.

Life changes, but never, ever ends.

So perhaps there was some life left in the old world after all.

Like father. Like sons.

-

-

_**"If you're going through hell, keep going." **_

_**~Winston Churchill**_

_**The END. Really! I MEAN it this time. ;^)**_

_**Thanks for reading.**_


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